The college had made at least one attempt in the past to recognize Rush's problematic views on slavery. Rush's biography on Dickinson College's website contains a small link off to the side which leads to an article on his connections to slavery. While I was pleased that such an attempt had been made, I noticed that the link to the article on Rush's ties with slavery is simply titled "Benjamin Rush," not something along the lines of "Rush and Slavery." This, combined with the light gray font against an only slightly darker gray background, makes the article easy to miss. Someone would probably need to be specifically looking for the article in order to find it. The article also only devotes a small paragraph to Grubber, offering no insight into his relationship other than, "The question remains open about Rush's relationship with Grubber...Rush himself offers little comment in his writings." [1]
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I wanted to know if there had been any other attempts made to call attention to Grubber's existence. I decided to first check digitized copies of the Dickinsonian, Dickinson College's newspaper, to see if any articles had been published there on the topic. I was surprised to find that, since 1872, not a single article in the Dickinsonian had been published which even mentions William Grubber's name. I then searched Rush's name to see if any of the articles mentioned him owning a slave at all. Of the articles I found that discuss Rush's character, none of them mentioned Rush's identity as a slaveholder or as an abolitionist. Most of the articles instead focused on praising his efforts as a physician or an educator.
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