As a NEH participant in the URR workshop, I want to recognize John Brown’s link to Iowa by pointing out that Brown, on his way east to prepare for Harper’s Ferry, stopped among the Quaker community in Iowa near Springdale. A couple of Quakers from that community, “abandoning their pacifist principals to fight with Brown,” […]
22
Jul
08
no comment
22
Jul
08
Connecting Spirituals to the Slave Experience
Posted by Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), Antebellum (1840-1861), Recent ScholarshipThough the use of spirituals as coded ‘road maps’ for the Underground Railroad is contentious, it can be fruitful to use these ‘documents’ in the classroom as a key to understanding how songs were important in the lives of slaves. One site that examines the different purposes and meanings of these historical records is Sweet […]
21
Jul
08
Slave Resistance at Christiana, Pennsylvania
Posted by Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), General Opinion, Recent ScholarshipElla Forbes, former professor of African American studies at Temple University and author of “But We Have No Country: The 1851 Christiana, Pennsylvania Resistance,” has written an article on the use of violence at the Christiana Resistance. Forbes argues that the use of violence at Christiana is “…an indication of the alienation blacks felt in […]
18
Jul
08
History Now, an online journal of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, provides essays studying a variety of issues and events throughout history. Abolition of slavery is one among them. In the September 2005 issue of History Now, abolition is the topic. Robert Abzug, a professor of History at the University of Texas at […]
17
Jul
08
The National Park Service presents a website explaining the history of the Underground Railroad and listing sites throughout the United States, in twenty-one states. The site gives brief overviews of topics in the history of American slavery. For each site listed, a brief overview is given. Visiting information is given for sites open to the […]
11
Jul
08
This article published by the New York Times gives a glimpse of the tension of the raid from the perspective of those seeking to end it. The document is part of a wider collection of Harper’s Ferry material on A House Divided.
11
Jul
08
Pennsylvania and the Underground Railroad
Posted by Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Lesson PlansThe Pennsylvania Historical Society, much more than just compiling the history of the state and collecting artifacts, provides freely lesson plans on the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, abolition in a more general context, and the experience of the free black community in Philadelphia. The seven lessons are for Middle to High School age students. Glossary, primary […]
10
Jul
08
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a classic story about the adventures of a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River, who helps the slave Jim escape. Published in 1884, the book portrays how life was in antebellum South. The novel is known as one of the first novels to take […]
9
Jul
08
A House Divided has a great clip on the Video Channel of Kate Clifford Larson and her book Bound for the Promised Land. In this clip, Larson explains one of the many myths that surrounds the story of Harriet Tubman.
9
Jul
08
Advertisement for William Still’s Underground Railroad
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Historic PeriodicalsI want to highlight an advertisement for William Still’s Underground Railroad that is available on the Ohio Historical Society website. Published in Cleveland Gazette on November 11, 1883, the ad claims that Still’s book “[was] one which must prove interesting and profitable to every reader.” If students read excerpts from Still’s book, some might want […]
