Autograph Album George T. Downing (1819-1903)

Cambridge resident Mr. Tynes collected autographs of some of the nation’s leading abolitionists. Tynes approached activists like Lewis Hayden more than ten years after the Civil War, revealing the high esteem in which they were held. Once deemed radical, Boston’s abolitionists were celebrated for their work during the decades following the war.

The Tyneses were an African American family living at 166 Haywood Street in Cambridge in the early 1880s. It is not clear if the album was compiled by caterer Timothy Tynes or his son, Timothy G. Tynes, who was a medical student at the time.