In 1833, The Emancipator, an abolitionist weekly, appointed him as an agent to canvas for subscribers throughout the mid-Atlantic states. By 1834, now on Lispenard Street, Ruggles was also writing regularly, publishing dozens of articles and pamphlets for newspapers throughout the Northeast. Between 1838 and 1841 he wrote, printed and published the first journal edited by an African-American, The Mirror of Liberty.
