Figure, Harriet Tubman. Its a name we know, its 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. Tonights speaker is here to bring us up to speed and date on that in a lecture thats sponsored by sa dechlio, so well thank them for that tonight. As you probably know, Harriet Tubmans 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 im going to tell awe little bit about catherine and shes 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 africanAmerican History. She has held positions at countless institutions for home base here shes 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 birgsling con. And finally shes also recently written a wellreceived Childrens 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 im 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 its a testament to the welltold story of a life. Im 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 phoners 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 theres 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 its 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 its post war reforms that she supported during those many years, womans suffer rage, blacks civil rights, africanmen 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 childrens shelf. There are over 300 tubman books lifted on amazon, including my own childrens picture book. I kept getting invited to read man knew scripts so i thought it was ease wrer to yuft do my own Childrens Book and so i wrote when harriet met so he generaler in 2007 my road includes emancipation and of womens 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 id 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 africanAmerican History. He public lushd a pathbreaking 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, womens 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 womens 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. Tubmans 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 longlot of hero whod been there all along. Just as she managed such a brilliant career hid nin plain sight. Shes 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 marylands 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 neighbors 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 mothers 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 slaveholding 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 harriets 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 wont say never pass up a dumpster but it is sometimes tempting. As a recristened selfleb 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 holders 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. Greens home was searched by the local cons stabl but yielded no incriminating evidence except a copy of uncle toms 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 cant 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 its 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 15yearold girl who levi coffin, the Ohio Underground Railroad conductor adopted into his family. Fairbanks spirited the girl away from her 80yearold 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 browns 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 nols fate was being determined in a secondfloor 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