By 1836, racial tensions revolving around the issue of slavery had reached a far more dangerous point than ever before. Though the issues of slavery versus abolition had simmered for years and the sectional divide between North and South had always existed, events of the early 1830s had brought them to the boiling point. On January 1, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp founded the newspaper The Liberator, which was dedicated to the eradication of slavery and advancing the rights of women. Its influence was almost immediately felt. It provided the impetus for the formation of the New England Anti- Slavery Society in 1832 and the American Anti- Slavery Society in 1833. The cause of abolition, which up to then had been mainly supported by the urban Black middle class, now became a significant, mainstream, biracial movement.