The following is the fifth in a series of inside looks at the current exhibition in Princeton University Library’s Ellen and Leonard Milberg Gallery in Firestone Library: “The Most Formidable Weapon Against Errors: The Sid Lapidus ’59 Collection & the Age of Reason.” 

Curated by Steven A. Knowlton, Librarian for History and African American Studies, the exhibition celebrates the collecting achievements of Sid Lapidus, Class of 1959, who has devoted many years to the acquisition of rare books that trace the emergence of Enlightenment ideas and their influence on politics, medicine, and society, creating a powerful tool for understanding the ideas that have shaped modern American society. 

Millions of people of African descent were enslaved. For Enlightenment thinkers concerned with the rights of the individual and personal liberty, slavery was an obvious target of criticism.

Many of the arguments against slavery that eventually culminated in emancipation had their first airings during the Age of Reason.

Most of the works collected by Lapidus on this topic were donated to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the New York Public Library.

(Image, right) Equiano was kidnapped from Nigeria as a child and enslaved. After he bought his freedom in 1766, he contributed to the abolitionist movement by writing his autobiography, one of the first slave narratives published in England.
 

Authors Thomas Day (1748–1789) and John Bicknell (1746–1787) composed the epic poem “The Dying Negro” about an enslaved man who committed suicide before allowing himself to be subjected to enslavement. The title page reproduced here illustrates the climactic moment in the poem and the protagonist’s dying words.

The exhibition is open through June 8, 2025 at the Milberg Gallery in Firestone Library. Please visit the website to view the gallery’s opening hours and for information about public tours and how to visit.