The Abolitionist Movement as an Early American Startup | Max Smith

Описание: Today on the podcast we're not talking about traditional startups or businesses - but the beginning of one of the most important movements in our nations history. And it's a story that most people don't know.

My guest is Max Smith, a historian, storyteller, and lifelong steward of the history of Peterboro, New York—a tiny village in Madison County that most people have never heard of, but that quietly shaped the course of American history.

What you’re about to hear is the story of how the abolitionist movement functioned, in many ways, like an early startup: a small group of people with an idea that was considered radical, dangerous, and disruptive…

And one of the epicenters of that movement wasn’t Boston or Washington—it was right here in Upstate New York.

It starts with drunken mob shutting down an abolitionist meeting in Utica… how that meeting was reborn the next day in Peterboro… how hundreds of people walked miles overnight to continue the work… and how those choices sent ripples that still shape the country today.

Max walks us through the life of Gerrit Smith (whom you’ve never heard of), one of the wealthiest men in America in the 1800s, and who after this event who gave away his fortune to fund abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights—often hosting Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, John Brown, and formerly enslaved people at his own dinner table.

This is also a deeply personal story for Max—one that connects his own family lineage directly to the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, and the long arc of freedom in this country.

If you care about how change actually happens… how movements are built… how courage, community, and conviction scale over time… this episode is for you.

It’s not a startup story in the way we usually tell them.

But it might be the most powerful one we’ve ever shared.


Thanks to Max for sharing our history with me - if you want to learn more: https://www.nationalabolitionhalloffa... or https://www.abolitionroad.org/