ARTHUR TAPPAN Biography - Bussiness people and enterpreneurs

 
 

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ARTHUR TAPPAN

Name: Arthur Tappan                                                               
Born: 22 May 1786                                                                 
Died: 23 July 1865                                                               
                                                                                 
Arthur Tappan (May 22, 1786 - July 23, 1865) was an American abolitionist.       
Born in Northampton, Massachusetts, he moved to Boston at the age of 15. In 1807 
he established a dry goods business in Portland, Maine. Arthur and his brother,   
Lewis Tappan, established a silk importing business in New York in 1826. After   
The Panic of 1837, which caused their silk business to go bankrupt, they started 
what became the first American commercial credit-rating service. In 1827, Arthur 
and Lewis founded the New York Journal of Commerce.                               
                                                                                 
In 1833, Arthur co-founded the American Anti-Slavery Society with William Lloyd   
Garrison, and served as its first president until 1840, when he resigned based   
on his opposition to the society's new founded support of women's suffrage and   
feminism. Continuing his support for abolition, Arthur and his brother founded   
the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1840, and the American           
Missionary Society in 1846. After the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was passed, he   
refused comply with the new law, and financially supported the Underground       
Railroad.