popularity in recent decades culminating in the announcement than she would be featured on the u.s. $20 bill. this event is hosted by the university of mary washington in fredericksburg, virginia. it's an hour and 15 minutes. [ applause ] >> i had there. good evening and thanks for coming out on what was a nice day today i think this will abe good way tend to your evening. welcome to the whimmium b. crawley lecture. a new appreciation of an iconic figure, harriet tubman. it's a name we know, it's a name we affiliate with the underground railroad, but we sort of forget after that she lived another 50 years, some remarkable 50 years after the civil war. tonight's speaker is here to bring us up to speed and date on that in a lecture that's sponsored by sa dechlio, so we'll thank them for that tonight. as you probably know, harriet tubman's face is due to grace the front of the $20 bill very soon and our speaker catherine clinton [ applause ] >> and our speaker catherine clinton is one of the people that helped to put her there. in fact, her biography of harriet tubman was praised a revelation. not bad. harriet tubman is probably an appropriate subject for her because i'm going to tell awe little bit about catherine and she's been in perpetual motion her entire life as well. she grew up in kansas city, missouri, and sefd her undergraduate from harvard university followed by a ph.d from prince ton, university. she specialized in american history with emphasis in the south and civil war as well as american women and african-american history. she has held positions at countless institutions for home base here she's been e at the university of richmond, the sitta dell, the chair of american history at the university of texas and san antonio. let me also add this to her list of accomplishments. she served as a consulteding scholar honor a number of documentaries and feature films including steven spiel birg'sling con. and finally she's also recently written a well-received children's book about harriet tubman which she will be signing after the lecture at the rear of the auditorium as usual along with her other work. so now please help me welcome to great lives, catherine clinton. [ applause ] >> thank you. thanks so much. [ applause ] >> thank you. many thanks for this return to fredericksburg and i'm particularly heartened that both the lecture series, champion we yim william crawley are now named after him and my biography of harriet tubman got launched in the same year. and i think it's a testament to the well-told story of a life. i'm also pleased that since 2004 there have been more than a half a dozen excellent studies on tubman and the underground railroad, including the pulitzer prize winner eric phoner's most recent book "gateway to freedom, the hidden history of the underground railroad" which was a new york times best seller that i think shows that there's a real hunger being slakd by our new views of the ynd ground railroad. + the intervening years, the university of mary washington has supported the plutarch award given april wally by the organization. so i think it's a great time to be celebrating great lives. the remarkable accomplishments of harriet tubman has an intrepid conductor on the underground railroad were widely acknowledged at the dawn of the century, but what of her role in the american civil war? and it's post war reforms that she supported during those many years, woman's suffer rage, black's civil rights, african-men philanthropy. one of her patriotism and her persistence. my book stem from a conviction that be scholarly works were in short supply. there was one authorized work in 1869 just after the civil war and then another by earl conrad which was published in the middle of world war i. when i was invited to right an encyclopedia entry on tub mab when i was teaching at harvard, i discovered that there was only a handful of scholarly articles and it was 60 years since there had been a trade biography of her. and so tubman languished confined to the children's shelf. there are over 300 tubman books lifted on amazon, including my own children's picture book. i kept getting invited to read man knew scripts so i thought it was ease wrer to yuft do my own children's book and so i wrote "when harriet met so he generaler in 2007" my road includes emancipation and of women's contributions to our past. when i began my doctoral degree in american history during the celebration of the u.s. by centennial, it was an uphill climb. i had majored in american studies and for my masters i'd done african american studies as an nund graduate, but i was a very ardent feminists and i wanted to see women included in the landscape of american history. the reading list for my doctoral qualifying exams included the foundational text, the age of jackson. which remained a standard on graduate reading lists well into the 1990s. little did i imagine that the age of jackson might give way to a new era of tubman within my own lifetime. my princeton ment mentor james mcfear son was a pioneer. many of you might know his battle cry of freedom, one of the most successful civil war texts, but he was a pioneer and african-american history. he public lushd a path-breaking collection in 1965 entitled "the negro civil war" how american knee grows felt and acted during the war for the union. so the revolution was under way to showcase african american contributions to the bat to end slavery and the consequent freedom struggles for equal opportunity which continue. now, women's history had not yet cracked the graduate curriculum by 1976, but the double burden of trying to expand the horizons of social history and to tell stories from the bottom up was a great challenge. my jenn generation of feminist hornz felt we had our work cut out for us. in narratives which did mention tubman, she was always heralded as an underground railroad contributor. this was always foregrounded and i think this remarkable story of course deserves our attention. but she made significant contributions as a scout, as a spy for the union, she was a nurse and she really was working closely with the military behind enemy lines. after 1865, she had a very strong record of ath tating for women's suffer rage while establishing her charity home in her adopted home of auburn in upstate new york. when she opened this home it was the only charity home open to african americans in all of new york outside of manhattan. yet the more than half century volg the abolition of slavery until her death in 1913 remains relatively neglected period of her life. by the time my harriet tubman appeared in 2004, sclarz seemed ready continue to clued her in the framework of african american freedom struggles, to place her alongside other feminists icons. tubman's image has adornd dozens of book covers, logos, web sites sht she has a kind of symbolic utility for many academic audiences, the twofer of being both a black and a woman. the acad me seemed ready to embrace her as a long-lot of hero who'd been there all along. just as she managed such a brilliant career hid nin plain sight. she's had a remarkable come back in the last few years which i will return to later. there are many controversial aspects of her life and particularly her legacy. one dispute has arisen between buy graphfers over the date of her birth. >> i describe her birth year as the one she testified to in multiple government petitions to obtain pension funds after the war. while others suggest alternative dates, tubman would never have lied about her age as a subject of my most recent biography, first lady mary lincoln would want to do. but whatever year, we know that tubman appeared in the 1820s and i suggest ara mint ta, her birth name was born in 1825 to enslave parents then harriet ross on maryland's eastern shore. during childhood, she was sa rearly tal life threatening add tubman later lament i did grew up like a knee glektd weed, ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. she led a harsh life being put out to work at the age of 6, moving from household to plantation to neighbor's farm, being harassed by cruel ov overseers. she droefrd labor in the fields raernl than the smothering supervision of domestic houser is vit. she married a free black man named tubman but lived where her master saw fit. in 1849 when she heard a roomer that her owner was planning to sell her down the river, many families had already been compiled into the deep south so she decided to make an escape. she wanted to make her own journey to freedom and doing so she was leaving behind parents and siblings. she would assume her mother's name, take the freedom name of harriet, which was also the name of one of her sisters who disappeared, but she would try to convince her husband, j.o.p., to go with her baugh he was not convinced. but she took his name, tubman, with her. the documentation of her departure, the infamous run away advertisement had never been located. in 19907, maryland native jay meredith moved his familiarly to bucktown maryland to settle on property that his slave-holding ancestors had once lived on. he helped to create a tourist site at the refurbished bucktown village store to protect and restore local heritage. this store was the place where a young hart yet tubman once ran ahead to warn a slave that the overseer was pursuing him. when harriet came between the enraged overseer and the fleeing slave, she was feld by an iron weight that he had thrown. the store is one of relatively few documented sites from harriet's years in maryland. in the early spring of 2003, mayor death heard that the heirs of a familiar that i lived for generations on the eastern shore were filling up a dumpster. he asked if he might take a look at what was being thrown out. granted permission, he and his wife put on the rubber gloves, the old clothes and they dug in. to their amazement, the couple unurged a copy of the cambridge democrat containing an advertisement for the run away minty. the first published piece of evidence documenting her flight in something that had always eluded scholars and arca vifts. i won't say never pass up a dumpster but it is sometimes tempting. as a recristened self-leb rated woman, harriet tubman arrived in pennsylvania unharmed and she launched an i will louisianaous career as a member of the underground railroad. by all rights in legend and deed, harriet tubman was the great emancipator leading scores of after man americans to freedom in the north at times all the way to canada. scholars may disagree over the numbers she led to freedom, but we all agree that she sacrificed comfort and safety to liberate others. she worked in concert with black abolitionist william still of philadelphia, and white quaker thomas garrett of delaware. she often told the story of the dark of night when three companions moved soundlessly along a desserted turnpike. the two male figures who accompanied tubman had never been on that road before, the path to freedom. more than the autumn chill in the air caused them to shiver as they moved as quickly and silently as possible hoping to reach their next stop before dawn. if cloudy skies obscured the moon, their guide was able to field them off on a tree to tell them which direction they must take. despite dangers and risks, the men were glad for their good fortune because they had entrusted their fate to moses as she was known among her people. during this moonlit trek, tubman decided to move off the highway and akrs an open field. after a long spiel the field ran out and she faced an unfamiliar river. she walked along the banks to see if there might abe bridge or boat to get to the other side. of a fruitless search fearing sunrise might over take them, tub man insisted they with volunteer v to cross on foot. the two men refused fearing drowning more than the slave holder's lash. rather than draw her pistol or waste her breath, harriet waded across alone at after she made it to the other side the two men meekly followed. soaked and weary they found they had to ford yet another wide stream before they came upon a cabin to take shelter. they made it to freedom a few days later. it was incredibly dangerous to assist fudgetives on the road. suspects were flown jail with the flimsiest 6 evidence. a free black minister in dorchester county was investigated by authorities. he was suspected of helping the grover eight. green's home was searched by the local cons stabl but yielded no incriminating evidence except a copy of uncle tom's cabin. now, under maryland law, possession of this by an african american was illegal, it was a banned book, green was prosecuted, convicted, and because of his high profile within the community, he was given a harsh sentence of ten years in jail. this punishment was meant to send a message to those who would dare harbor fugitives. they would be prosecuted and there would be no mercy. tub man crafted her exdecisions with extreme care. white abolitionist alice stone rockwell reportsed that the woman known as moses would use music and spirit walz to signal to fudgetives hidden along the road. she directed them by her songs as to whether they might show themselves, black well told us, or must they continue to lie low. no one would notice what was sung by an old colored woman as she trudged along the road. once, when she had to pass through a town near her maryland home during daylight, she walked the streets equipped with a large sun bonnet pulled down over her face and two lied foul. had she spoted one of her former mass sters approaching she yanked the stripgz on the chickens legs and they began to squawk and she avoid eye contact and tentded to her birds and passed only inches from this former master. her steel nerves and her inga knew witty combined to make her one of the most intrepid workers within the underground railroad. she was almost always prepared with a change of costume or some other diversion. with great pride she confide to her colleagues in 1904, i can say what most conductors can't say, i never ran my train off the track, and i never lost a passenger. there were only a handful of conductors who gained notoriety before harriet came on to the scene, all of them were white men and, indeed, most of them were like harriet known as abductors who traveled into the south to assist fujitativititives. the reason these white men became identified as abductors or conductor was because they were caught. which in all but one case curtailed their underground railroad activities. in 1844, massachusetts sea captain jonathan walker was detained offshore in florida with a boatload of fugitives. walker was caught in the askt assisting runaways as he used the open seas as his es kpaip scape right, conviction victimed by a pensacola jury. he was at first locked into a pillarry where he was pelted with rotten eggs, then he was given excessive fines and forced to serve nearly a year in jail until antislavery friends could raise enough cash to secure his release. but before he was released and sent on his way, he received a punishment which would become infamous. he was branded on his hand by a u.s. marshal, the mark ss for slave steel staerl, a term white southerners used. john greenly composed a poe emin tribute to his horrific scar if i occasion which ended with the verse then lit that manly right hand bold plow man of the wave it's branded palm shall prov sigh salvation to the slave. he was there along the road to freedom with harriet tubman as were john favor field, charles troy and calvin fairbanks. good thesis topics for you students out there. fairfield bas the most unusual of the three, born the son of a slave holder but renounced his birth right to spend his time and energy liberating slaves assisting them all the way to canada. charles tori was a yale educated congregational minister who resigned his post at a church in providence in 1838 to become involved in the underground railroad. he was kout transport a slave family out of virginia in 1843. he was sentenced to six years hard labor in the maryland pen tentry. he died while incarcerate and became a marter to the cause. the reverend calvin fair bank learned to hate slavery when he was a student at oberlin college in ohio. by 1837 he began making trips to kentucky helping slaves across the ohio river. over his years with the underground railroad he had smuggled nearly 50 slaves to freedom. he began with a 15-year-old girl who levi coffin, the ohio underground railroad conductor adopted into his family. fairbanks spirited the girl away from her 80-year-old master in montgomery county, kentucky. quote, she was the fifth in direct dissent from her master being the great, great, great granddaughter of a slave whom he took as his mistress at the age of 14. and now he was expecting to make this girl his mistress. this kind of sensationalism became standard abolition nist fair unveiling the evils of slavery as was this anonymous painting of an 1850 slave sale in lexington, kentucky. john brown always called harriet tubman general which signified her high esteem that she was a warrior in the wake of brown's death and mart tirdom, tubman poured in her first rup in new york. charles nol, a fugitive slave was being held by authorities in troy, new york. tubman was visit a troy relative when nol's fate was being determined in a second-floor courtroom. she took props into the crowded chamber, a shaw, and a basket that made her look very innocuous. tubman was standing at the back of the room when was announced he would be shipped back to virginia. the crowd below disappointed in the verdict began to swell. harriet tubman knew she must seize the moment. she would test the good people of troy. would they rise to the occasion? and help her strike a blow for freedom? shortly after nol was man knack will. in the blink of an eye the frail old woman surprised the guards by grabbing a hold of him, wrenching him free, dragging him down the stairs into the wait willing arms of com rads. an eyewitness reported she was rhee peteedly beaten over the head with policemen's clubs but she never released her hold. bleeding and half conscious he was hauled down to the river and road across the water on a skif. however, authorities on the opposite bank were lying in wait. once he reached the other side, he was taken back into custody and he was confined to a judge's chamber. but his boat was fold by a ferry with 400 abolitionists bent on protecting him. when tubman landed, she rallied followers to storm the building where he was being held, bent on liberation, the human battering ram wreaked havoc on a number -- in recognition of her war work. tubman died on march 10th, 1913 and the harriet tubman home, the charitable institution she had established to shelter and care for the needy within her community. following her death, booker t. washington and other race leaders praised tubman for her exemplifies rear sacrifice and contribution. she was given a military funeral at fort hill cemetery in auburn, new york. the town of auburn also put up a plaque in her memory on a courthouse to commemorate her, and this was the first public acknowledgement of an african american woman through in memorization. i have been to the tubman's life during the annual ceremony in auburn, new york, on tubman day clr is march 10th. i've been to st. catherine's kapd where she shepherded her fugitives to safety to avoid slave catch nertz north. i've been to the renovated country sore in dorchester county, maryland near where she received her life-threatening injury. >> i sailed on the waters by cambridge maryland where she ran as a child and i've been to boston where she spoke to, quote, colored conventions on behalf of freedom. along my travels, i bought tubman mugs, stamp, pins, t-shirts, even a comic book. but you need not leave home to reap treasures. search on the internet and the popular ebay. it will yield you a grab bag of harriet tubman memorabilia, ceramic figures, watches, posters reason and especially dolls. the harriet dolls i have seen from the harriet dig brainy baby to the tubman american heritage doll all have one thing in common, they bear little resemblance to tubman. when i proposed a new biography of harriet tubman last century i was take n aback when a senior scholar endorsed my idea but he suggested that i needed to remind people that her first language was dutch. he was mixing her up with so he generaler in truth. when i told another scholar, a mentor actually that i would be writing a biography of the most famous african american from the 19th century he only guessed tubman on the third try starting with frederick douglas, who we know is making a come back, and then he guessed overture. >> i only include these anecdotes to demonstrate that in 1998 when i began my project incoming undergraduates were more familiar with harriet tubman's achievements than those within the formal academy. in the nine een 80s and 90s, discussions on lists and letters to the editor attempted to use to beman as a symbol for battles over gun rights versus gun control. tub mab not only shouldered a rifle when she served with the union army, but we know she always carried a mispistol during her travels along the underground ryle railroad. this matter of fact should not really influence modern political debates but it seems to. it was to my great regret, it was interesting i noticed this because i have two sons, they're five years apart. one born in nine & 84, one born in 1989. and i took them each to harriet tubman plays. but they were quite different plays because the issue of guns and schools, guns and children had become much more highly charged in the 1980s. and i was also interested in the idea that was propagated in popular art such as this print which appeared on a book that harriet tubman carried a rifle when she was on the underground railroad. now, she was so stejthalthy and wise that i think a black woman carrying a rifle around in the south behind enemy lines is not really likely. but she did carry a pistol and the use of that pistol and the fact ha she carried a gun is something, as i said, that's been dragged into a lot of modern debate, certainly the black power movement of the late 1960s created the renewed wave of interest in tubman. portraying her as a founding mother of black revolutionaries. and as i've taught abroad for almost a decade, the image of her was really popularized internationally at the victoria and albert museum, in london they had an installation for the by centennial celebration ending of the international slave trade and there she was in some ways treated as a mama of revolutionaries. now, tubman may have been a revolutionary and advocated by any means necessary, but she was also one of the women who sought to build through interracial cooperation and she put her christian faith into action. thus, she's become, in a way, a harriet for all seasons embraced by the black panthers on the one hand, by clan definite continued modern movements to sheltder women and children in the modern era, and certainly advocates of peaceful nonviolence. it's such a pin knack will of conflicted symbolism, her popularity e-liz itted a kind of backlash following the release the nshl history standards in 1996, tubman's name was invoked as an example of laws associated with the guidelines. after protect transacted debates in which opponents of the standards hammered away at revisionism, she became a hot button. she became a symbolic whipping girl for political correctness but even as they pickered, she continued to blossom within pop culture. artistic representations of harriet are manifold, one of my favorite were named some of these images as harriet done by jacob lawrence and his familiar muss 1939-40 series. but public art semipressive and it's a major of her growing presence. especially in statues. a tribute to her partnership with thomas garrett in wilmington, delaware, directed in 1993. a group u group portrait in battle creek, michigan, in 1994 and by the way, battle creek, michigan, was so he jennifer truth's adoptive hope home. the leading of april can americans to freedom in boston in 1999. tubman with a child in little rock, tubman kpot exporting in bristol, pennsylvania, and tubman in manhattan in 2008. there's a bus outside the salem chapel in st. cath trin's canada this that was put up in 2010. and the markers, there are much to many markers for me to keep track of but it was a particular triumph when south carolina named the bridge over the come by river in tubman's honor in 2008. despite sicily tyson's powerful portrayal until tubman in a television mini series in 1978, she's had a very low media profile until very recently. viola davis is trying to bring her to the screen for an hbo movie. when she won & emmy award in september, 2015, she paraphrased tubman's words to advocate on behalf of black actresses. quote, in my mind i see a line and over that line i see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me. over that line, but i can't seem to get there no how. i can't steam get over that line. davis went on to say that was harriet tubman in the 1800s and let me tell you something, the only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. . in march, 2017, she will appear as a regular on the gn series underground for those uh watching it although sadly i haven't seen the new series but the promos do show her carrying a rifle rather than a pistol. so, mercy street has many more hornz consulting on it. but although she was featured in the 2012 abraham link on vampire hunter although i have a special weakness for this, my friend tony krisher in was quite rightly outraged that this movie would be the first movie to portray lincoln in 60 years rather than spielberg's lincoln but nevertheless it has a plot twist where the first lady married lincoln and harriet tubman come together to save the day by smuggling silver bullets to get diesburg so they could beat the vampire confederates. ly couldn't have imagined this, but when i did see it, it had a certain kind of sem mittry for me. so tubman has really remained fork loind and she's only recently been given the respect she deserves. here is a portrait of her as an old woman and she's wearing a shaw you see. it isn't the shou that's on display there, but you can go to the new african-american history and culture museum in d.c. and see on display it's a shaw that was sent to her by queen victoria. so we do have to see that at long last we're discovering other aspects. when the women on the 20s campaign emerged on line in the spring of 2015, it was a popular internet uprising and it followed in the wake of u.s. trev you'rier and beam appointee rosy reoes who advocated for putting women on the money. there was a scheduling a redesign for bills and she felt wads time for us to consider putting women on the money. the internet campaign raised important issues. including a poll with over 600,000 voting and harriet tubman was declared the winner. in the summer of 2015 when the treasury launched its own new ten kam campaign, i pronounced tubman a fine candidate and weighed in like many oj scholars. but the populous outpouring was unprecedented as the treasury website received over a million americans sending in their nominees. and this became in many ways a campaign ton educate people about fwhen american -- women in american history. it was interrupted somewhat by the save hamilton campaign of the same period and i also think we can't really judge how successful it was because unfortunately educating the american people on women can be an uphill battle. as the gop candidates were faced with this, who we wo they nominate and they found the next day most of the newspapers gave them a very poor grading for their nominations. but nevertheless, over the summer of -- of 2015, i became concerned about all the competing agendas. and on august 5th, 2015, the secretary of the treasury invited a group of scholars to the smithsonian to discuss ongoing efforts to put a female face on the american currency. this is actually the back of of a $2 bill. how many of you remember the $2 bill? oh, we have some hands. and so would it surprise to you know that it's thomas jefferson on the front of the $2 bill. but rather than being a big hit bill, i think it kind of in a flurry periodically, it was often used by african americans during black history month to demonstrate their consumer power, so you would actually find it circulating more as a protest rather than as a popular movement. so i think that secretary lou and the treasure, he really wanted to get a cross country. they went around the country soliciting opinions. they had a kind of summit meeting had the here say picture of roessy on the 5th of august in 2015. they gathered scholars from history, economics, anthropology with specialties ranging from american in the late 20th century to colonial history, i suggested during our lively debates that a woman of color must be the female honored on any redesigned currency. i was not alone in this conviction. we're the only one who advocated tubman that she would be one of the best women ton fit the bill. but i was the only scholar that brought along my buy graph phys for the secretary and the treasurer so they could learn for themselves why tubman might be such an unimpeach able candidate. and i later met with lou privately after he read my book and requested to meet with me. if my recently published book, step daughters of history, women in the american six war, i argued that dismantling this is a necessary step for including african american women in american history, particularly women like harriet tub man. and i discussed the issues that aroud during a very heated exchange at the smithsonian summit. some of us objected to the idea that women's faces must be treated to a higher esthetic standard rather than judging the individual's worth by contributions to american ideals. this is something i thought was done with men and should be done equally with women. most upsetting for me was a comment by a scholar that the american people might not be ready to accept a ma'ammy on the money. even if it was a beloved icon, harriet tubman. so i then pulled out a copy of my book and with the dignified image of this hero and you can look at the three biographies that came out in 2004, we all used the same image, we argued passionately for her selection. and there it was, harriet tubman even after surviving, achieving, escaping forces of erase sure that she could be branded a mammy, however she part of a new generation of scholarship that included disremembering alongside omitting. she would be part of our revised narrative that allowed flush and blood women as flushy as necessary to replace cartoon characters. her story remains emblah matic of african american women struggles of the nine teeth century and into the modern era. she was and is proof mammy remains a weapon in our culture. on april 20th, 2016, jacob lou argued that the family of redesigned bills would name hamilton while creating opportunities for more than just one woman, thus, la kweesh ar mott, susan b. anthony, alice paul and so he jerer in truth will appear on the back of the $10 bill which is the first one schedule for redesign. and mayor yan anderson, joined by martin luther king are proposed for the reverse of the lincoln $5 portrait. but it will be harriet alone, a star turn that will adorn the front of a new $20 bill. this lodging andrew jackson was a victory many associated with this campaign, but getting harriet tubman on the money was my goal. all of these scheduled redesigns will be slow for a viral reresponse. but when i began my career over 40 years ago, the idea that such a change would happen within my lifetime seemed a fantasy. did i hope to survive to see the opening of the harriet tubman underground railroad monument on the eastern shore of maryland and it will happen this year, 2017, on the weekend of mar 11th which follows harriet tubman day. this is an effort spearheaded by independent scholar and tubman buygrapher kate clifford larson. i also welcome the addition of the harriet tubman national historical park in auburn, new york. on the side of the charity home she found a park established in a signing ceremony on the tenth of january, tweft. and it's especially gratifying to be able to give three cheers over a newly discovered pore trait of tubman. what experts agree is perhaps the earliest known photograph of her. it will be auctioned off at swan galleries in manhattan on the 30th of march. the portrait was not discovered in a dumpster, but it was in a jumbo sale on the streets of new york when someone strold by and started picking through the pictures, i know some of you out there do that. i know you're looking for treasure. and over 30 years ago this souvenir album was purchased. and those of us addicted to searching for valuables, i think should share in this celebration of a treasure finally coming to light. this is a newly discovered portrait of harriet tubman. so 2016 i think was a banner year as we so 2016 was a banner year. we also have ms. liberty getting a new face. it's been announced by the u.s. mint and we eagerly await tubman on the $20 bill. writing my biography of tubman last century, i adopted the mantra let 100 harriets bloom. . and sure enough, the u.s. treasury will make this dream a reality when we can enjoy billions of tubmans joining lincoln in spirk lags. so let's give harriet a cheer in the new year. [ applause ] >> [ inaudible ] does anybody know that? >> well, i always say nobody know, but we make educated kbeszs. and this is one of the controversial area where is biographers disagree. i think we chose to disagree. i can make the argument whether she only smuggled her sister to safety a few months a after her own self-liberation, or she smuggled several hundred that were reported when she would speak. there were only 70 verifiable cases. but we are taking about a clandestine network of people. we do know that there is a case where tubman smuggled nearly a dozen fugitives to freedom. and she took them to upstate new york and across the border. we find an example of fed rick douglas coming to his house with 11 fugitives that he keeps safe in upstate new york. we only have these snatches and we don't have full evidence. and if you could be put in jail for having a banned back in your house, you can imagine how african-americans feared -- and we know after 1850 with the passage of the fugitive slave law, personal liberty laws which have been put forward in pennsylvania and other places were overturned by the federal government. i'm sure you heard of that here in virginia the battle between federal and state. it's going on from time immemorial. and it goes on during this period, but in 128th century, african-americans who settled for decades or more are very fearful. we know that a very respected african-american was hauled in front of the court in and a slave catcher said this is a runaway. he was known to people in the court, including the vuj, to have been a resident of philadelphia for over a decade. we don't know the numbers. they are disputed. we try to gauge tubman's accomplishments by numbers doesn't really gel for us and a greater awareness that records are hidden. we don't know things. they have to keep records hidden until after a war. those dumpsters are going to yield things. i know when i did my first book, i went around encouraging people, go into your attics. i'm not asking people to give away your paper, but take it to an archive so they can copy it for you and keep it safe so that we will have more of these records. >> i really enjoyed your presentation. was she involved with john brown in the raid? he insulted her and she could not go with him, or she dependent b go with him because of illness. >> y e. one of my reviewers said she, quote, faked her illness so she wouldn't be involved in a disastrous run. she understood brown's project. he was someone who really did convert her to the notion of slavery as war. when she was a young woman just married, she hired a lawyer to look up her papers to see if her mother wasn't free technically when she was born. when she discovered this slippery slope that so many slai holders practiced was a deceit upon her mother i think that turned her in a day towards breaking down unjust laws. he was a figure in upstate new york. she raised money for him, she spoke for him. she had to use the pseudonym har yet garrison when speaking in boston because she didn't want to get caught in her association. but it was true that brown kept postponing the date and sending news back and forth. but new work on brown shows us that this conspiracy was known by scores of people. so by the time brown did launch his raid, it was well known among abolitionist circles. and i think she was concerned about keeping her safety and her ability to go south and her ability to continue to rescue. i mention these abductors. we don't use that term because it has a flavor to it, but she would hear from a family member that someone needed to be rescued anticipate she would undertake individual rescued. and again, i think that work had become very personal and powerful to her. and brown's plan of an uprising was one that she supported in theory, we have evidence. she revered him. she wept. it was said by others, one person who welcomed brown as a comrade rather than as a martyr. so i think they was quite close and admiring of him. he called her general and also used the male pro-noun. i know some of my younger colleagues will transgender her. but i actually think that, you know, my book doesn't try and do that. i have sort of an oprah apgle that she married a younger man the second time around, someone she met at work during the liberation of slaves behind enemy lines during the war. nelson davis was release the in brownsville, texas. and he met up with her in auburn, new york. he made his way to her and he remarried. so my view of her was that she was so much a warrior that john brown called her general. and treated her to the male pro-nopro prono pronoun. >> how does she escape the 1850 fugitive slave pact when she was moving in and out. everyone possibly knew who she was. how did she maneuver that. >> it's interesting because mcpherson's book, he talked about accounts of black women were invisible. so the i visibility of black women was something they used. and there was a moment where harriet was on a train. she also, by the way, frequently took a train south. because a black woman going south was not as suspect as a black woman on a train north. she would gather her money, go out, go south, go specifically off to rescue individuals and there are times when she would always travel at night, traveled to -- the example i gave trying to find in the woods some safety, but never traveling by day. and she had certain routes that she would follow on the delmarva peninsula. she knew safe stations. she also -- well, disappeared image of her. but in it, tubman would often take cart devis with her to a place. if she could show the picture to someone, she knew who it was. and if they knew the name of who it was, then they were a safe person. so she had her way, i think, of making routes. and thomas garret and william still and so many others were able to help her. she would make her way to canada to st. catherines and deliver people to safety. that was her skill, her talent. she would not do it when she was unwell. she did have unwell spells. i mentioned her illness that we don't have a record of. but she could do any rescues under those conditions i think is quite remarkable. thank you for your questions. >> in the western route, they displayed a quilt which they said was a road map that the slaves used as directions. would that be something that harriet tubman would use as guidance for the eastern route? >> no, i'm afraid i have to disspell the myth of the quilt code. sorry. tubman was a quilter. we have quilts on her bed in her own house hus, as well as in the harriet tubman home, but the thought that quilts were symbols that african-americans used for safe houses is not been substantiated. we have dean lot of scholarship to dispel that particular myth. at the same time, as one of the few women who can name and study and find so much information on, we do have to acknowledge that a quilt may have played an important role in her escape. she may have used it as payment to one in order to obtain food and hiding. but again, this is all material we put together. i have twice bought a harriet tubman underground railroad set. you can buy them off the internet. and they have a family and they have the quilt and they have the cabin. and then they have the little blood hound. to me it's like one of the -- you know, like the gun problem. it's really? a blood hound would be included in the underground railroad toy set. because it's not thinking that the bloodhound would be n associated with the family not with those tracking her. >> do you see yourself becoming a key member of a push for president obama to be on the currency? and a black king of england on the pound? >> no, sir. i am not an advocate of obama on the money. there are two rules. one of them, which i wish all the republican candidates had known when they mentioned their mothers is that you must be dead to appear on american currency. that's my vociferous response to that. i was surprised to learn as many americans were, it's the portfolio and it's the position alone of the secretary of the treasury, not congress, not the white house. so it is really something that has to do with currency design. and i learned a lot about it. i do think the ideas that we can honor those people in our past -- and one of the things i talked to secretary lu about was tubman took three years, but she had testimony from u.s. generals, people who knew her as an upstanding philanthropist and she was a deeply patriotic person. she asked for the money who said i wofr done so much for the flag in which i am enfolded, why shouldn't i be entitled to what others are? and she was eventually given a pension. and i think honoring her as one who did work for the american government works for me. and i'm also in favor of the fact that secretary lu tried to talk about the way the currency tells the story. how many of us know that there are certain countries and places where u.s. southecurrency in fo nations. it heartens me to think that countries all over this hemisphere and in other places will look at that picture and want to know about who is on the matter. she broke the internet they say on the day of the announcement with people trying to google tubman and find out all about her. and i think it would be interesting when you know how brave he was. in the uk, they had a movement to put women on the money. and a woman who led that movement was threatened with bodily harm. had to go to court to protect herself. and the person was so angry and vitriolic because she was suggesting jane austen go on the money. as a historian, revering the past and made accomplishments. it's fitting that it was tub ban because she was not recognized in her own time. she was impoverished yet she was working in a charity to help oth others. she was raising money for schools even though she was illiterate. she was raising the flag. she was trying to get women the vote. the most former tenant of the white house at all, but nevertheless, i won't be leading that campaign. >> you did a wonderful job. my question is that you said harriet tubman had been married twice. do you know if she ever had in i children? >> thank you for another controversy. is when i began my biography, i was quite struck with the fact that she attracted so many young girls to her household. there's a picture that's identified as harriet tubman and slaves she rescued. there was a particular young girl that she did bring into auburn. and there was a great deal of controversy about this young girl who clearly, she adopted and faired and took in as her own. and that daughter, alice, became a favorite. so we have a clear family con b next. this was a daughter of one of harriet's brothers that was free and brought up to auburn. and then it gets very murky. and you do find a lot of the extended family being a bit unfind. i found an incident where she was referred to as a pumpkin hussy. so i tried to look into the language of the period, the attitudes of the period and it was no surprise to me that kate larsen and i came out with our biographies at the same time, and we came to the same conclusion that there's a possibility that this child might have been harriet's own child by birth that she had given up then she rescued that child and brought that child to freedom and saw that she was given a, an extended family, an education. her decendents became educators in a way. it's something that i think fits with the larger profile. how she never acknowledged or how she never spoke about it, i think shows a lot of her her character and dignity. during the civil war, there were times when females would come into the army camp in south carolina. she would be very protective of them and she would be very aware, sensitive to the issue that african-american women couldn't often protect themselves. this time it was from the union soldiers wells the larmer southern community around. and she wouldn't send this young woman north until she could find a female escort to go with her and take her to safety. i see examples where tubman is quite aware of this but we don't have letters, we don't have testimony. we do have many collateral decendents of her brothers and sisters. but only this one margaret might have been her own daughter. and larsen and i believe that and have written about that and some other writers have looked into this as well. >> thank you. i'm curious. you raise the idea of the african-american woman. and that brought to my mind of elizabeth kekly. did they ever have any exchanges or interactions whether it was civil war period or afterwards. >> such a good question. it's something i thought about. no, i haven't found any evidence. a lot of us go around trying to track things or plot where people were. most recently president obama named buford as a national park for reconstruction. so i was asked if tubman was there. part of the answer is that we in the field go around trying to find intersections in moments. so we say elizabeth keckley must have known harriet jacobs because they were in washington working in the contrabands at the same time. harriet tubman must have known francis watkins up in the north. they were in the same small town in canada at the same time. but they didn't have smart phones. they didn't have facebook locator. we can't really find this. there is no evidence of this. but keckley is rereceiceiving a of interest. but it's for your generation and the next generation to keep in the archives, as well as the dumpsters, in biography classes as well as out on sites. so thank you very much. >> thank you very much for your time and informative discussion about harriet tubman. i wanted to know, how do you think she -- you mentioned that she had a christian faith that guided her. and i want to know how you think she came by her christian faith. and i'm also -- i have a lot of questions about what piqued your interest that you wanted to become a biographer of harriet tubman. >> i found the religious question quite compelling for me. when i was talking to a variety of people about my tubman biography, i had one or two of them confront med and said you know, i heard harriet tubman thought she could talk directly to god and would follow his instructions. so how are you going to hand that will? i said you're right, i'm going to write in my book that harriet tubman thought she spoke directly to god and tried to follow what she thought were the guidelines of christianity. i'm only joking about this because she was a miracle maker. she was someone who would go into the office and say i need money to rescue someone and thomas garret would be so taken aback, this money had just come in to give her the money. she prayed fervently. she was out in the swamp with a group and was afraid of discovery. she was someone who believed that her strong faith led her throu through. i think it's something that's important. she also believed in individual will and i'm often asked somewhat children are so fascinated by her. when we were teaching and learning about the great women. we were studying theory which i appreciated, but i wanted to know more about the study of the impact of the war and race enemancipation and emancipation studies was growing in importance. so i was contemplating wrietinga larger study of women in the civil war, but i thought i had written my first book on white women before the civil war, so i started looking at african-american women after the war. and tubman came up. when i tried to find more material on her and write on her, i thought the neglect of her was very unfortunate. because i think american schoolchildren had been really heartened and inspired by her examp example. one person can make a difference. one person can change another person's life saving them. and i think that very powerful message coming at a time when it came, when our country was contemplating holocaust studying, when our country was facing eradication of people because of their color or their faith, she came to me as someone whose full story, she shouldn't be a folk character, she should be what she was, a very significant activist for us in and freedom. that was our goal. >> saturday is earth day. we'll cover the march for science rally, including speeches with scientists and civic organizers, as well as musical performance, live from the national mall in washington, d.c. at 10:00 a.m. eastern on our companion network c-span. saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern, georgia tech history professor gregory nobles also the influence of john james audubon and how he helped pioneer citizen science. >> really admires audubon's work. he was very, very good and he did it with no binoculars, no field guides, no iphone apps and i think the proof is in the painting. >> gettysburg college professor on abraham lincoln, his views on slavery and the dread scott u.s. supreme court decision. >> there is now no restraint, not even the restraint of popular sovereignty on taking slaves into the territories. his. >> it's my hope that this beautiful new museum helps inspire you to become those active, involved citizens in this very great country. because history has its eyes on you. >> then 8:00 on the presidency, author catherine sibley talks about floor ren harding. >> she had been in hospital and had her kidneys operated on. she could relate through the things they were going through. it was interesting because out of this veterans cause came the veterans bureau, right? this was the first time the united states actually had a bureau. what we call the v.a. today to take care of americans. >> the maryland park service together with the national park service recently opened the harriet tubman underground railroad visitors center on maryland's eastern shore. next the nachbl archives holds a discussion on harriet tubman's legacy, her work with the underground railroad and the ongoing preservation of her maryland birth days. it's an hour and a half. >> during the civil war, harriet tubman davis served the union side as a scout, nurse, cook and spy. for all she endured and accomplished, her life is legenda legendary, legendary but not legend, for the evidence of her deeds resides in various archives and manuscript collections and here the national ar archives. in 1863, tubman