Abolition of Slavery

This wood engraving commemorates the abolition of slavery, depicting an emancipated figure standing with arms raised in liberation, adorned with broken chains rendered as small rectangular blocks. The print descends from a long European tradition of political satire—from Hogarth's moral narratives through Gillray's caricatures to Daumier's lithographs—where engraved or printed images mobilized public opinion on urgent social questions. Such prints circulated widely as single sheets and in popular newspapers, establishing the visual-narrative strategies that would later structure modern comics: combining image, text, and emotional argument to reach mass audiences on matters of justice and reform.