As you probably know harriet , tubmans face is due to grace the front of the 20 bill soon. Our speaker, Catherine Clinton, [applause] Catherine Clinton is one of the people that helped to put her there. In fact, her biography of Harriet Tubman was praised as a revelation. Not bad. Harriet tubman is an appropriate subject for her. I will tell you a little bit about catherine. She has been in perpetual motion almost are whole life as well. She grew up in kansas city, missouri. She received her undergraduate from harvard university. She specializes in American History with an emphasis on the American South and the civil war as well as american women and , african American History. She has held academic positions at countless institutions. She has been at the university of richmond, the citadel, the current chair of history at university of texas at san antonio. She served as a consulting scholar on a number of documentaries and feature films, including Steven Spielbergs lincoln. Pretty neat. Finally, she has also recently written a wellreceived Childrens Book about Harriet Tubman which she will be signing after the lecture. Along with her other work. Please help me welcome Catherine Clinton. [applause] thank you so much. Many thanks for this return to fredericksburg. I am particularly heartened that both the lecture series and my biography of Harriet Tubman got launched in the same year. I think it is a testament to the welltold story of a life. Im also pleased that since 2004 , there have been more than half a dozen excellent studies of. Tubman and the underground railroad including the pulitzerprizewinning recent book, gateway to freedom. Times bestw york there which i think shows is a real hunger being slaked about our new views about the underground railroad. During the intervening years, the university of Mary Washington has supported the plutarch award. It is given annually by the Biographers International organization. I think it is a great time to be celebrating great lives. Accomplishmentsarkable of Harriet Tubman as an intrepid conductor on the underground railroad were widely acknowledged at the dawn of this century. But what of her role in the American Civil War and the postwar reforms she supported during those years . Womens suffrage, black civil rights, africanamerican philanthropy. What of her patriotism and persistence . My book stems from a conviction that scholarly works were in short supply. There was one authorized work in 1869, just after the civil war. And then another by earl conrad published in the middle of world war ii. When i was invited to write an encyclopedia entry on Harriet Tubman when i was teaching at harvard, i discovered there were only a handful of scholarly articles. 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 listed on amazon, including my own childrens picture book. I kept getting invited to read manuscripts. So i thought it was easier to just do my own Childrens Book. So i wrote a childs book published in 2007. My road to Harriet Tubman coincided with important changes in interpretations of emancipation and in womens contribution to our past. When i began my doctoral degree in American History during the celebration of the u. S. Bicentennial, it was an uphill climb. I had majored in american studies. For my masters, i had done African American studies as an undergraduate. I was an ardent feminist 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. It remained a standard undergraduate reading list well into the little did i imagine 1990s. Mightthe age of jackson give way to a new era of Harriet Tubman in my own lifetime. My princeton mentor 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 of africanAmerican History. He published a pathbreaking collection in 1965 entitled the negro civil war. The revolution was underway to showcase African American contributions to the battle 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 tell stories from the bottom up was a great challenge. My generation of feminist historians 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 for grounded. I think this remarkable story deserves our attention. But she made significant attributions as a scout, a spy for the union, a nurse, and she really was working closely with the military behind enemy lines. After 1865, she had a strong record of agitating for womens suffrage while establishing her homety home in her adopted in 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 a halfcentury following the abolition of slavery until her death in 1913 remains a relatively neglected. Period of her life. By the time of my study, scholars seemed ready to include her in the framework of africanamerican freedom struggles. Tubmans image has adorned dozens of book covers, logos, websites. She has a symbolic utility for many academic audiences. Ae twofer of being both black and a woman. The academy seems ready to embrace her as a longlost history who had been there all along. She managed a brilliant career hidden in plain sight. She has had a remarkable historical comeback within 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 biographers over the date of her birth. I ascribe her birth year is the she put down one on multiple government pensions. While others suggested alternate dates, tubman would have never lied about her age. As a subject of my most recent biography, first Lady Mary Lincoln was wont to do. We know that Harriet Tubman appeared in the 1820s. I suggest that she was born in 1825 to enslaved parents on the maryland Eastern Shore. During childhood, she was severely challenge. Tubman later lamented i grew up edke a no neglected we ignorant of liberty, having no , experience of it. She let a harsh life, being put out to work at the age of six. Being harassed by overseers. Witnessing siblings disappearing. While growing into a young woman, she preferred labor in the field rather than its mother the smothering supervision of domestic house service. She married a free black man lived where, but her master saw fit. In 1849 when she heard a rumor that her owner was planning to sell her down the river, many family and neighbors had already been exiled into the deep south. So she decided to make an escape. She wanted to make her own journey to freedom. In doing so, she was leaving behind parents and siblings. She would assume her mothers name, taking 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 to go with her, but he was not convinced. But she took his name, tubman, with her. The documentation of her departure the infamous runaway , advertisement, had never been located. In 1997, a maryland native moved his family to bucktown, maryland to settle on property is slaveowning ancestors had once lived on. He hoped to create a tourist site to protect and restore local heritage. This store was the place where a young Harriet Tubman once ran ahead to warn a slave that the overseer was pursuing him. When harriet came between the enraged overseer and the playing slate, she was felled by an iron weight he had thrown. The store is one of relatively few documented sites from harriets years in maryland. In early 2003, meredith heard that the heirs of a family that 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, duged the old clothtes, and in. To their amazement, they unearthed a copy of the cambridge democrat, containing an advertisement for the runaway. The First Published piece of evidence that has documented her eluded scholars. I wont say never pass up a dumpster, but it is sometimes tempting. As the woman arrived in pennsylvania, she launched on illustrious career as a member of the underground railroad. By all rights in legend and deed, Harriet Tubman was the great emancipator, leading scores of African 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 the lit up you and white Quaker Thomas Garrett of delaware. She often told the story of the dark of night when three companions moved soundlessly along a deserted turnpike. Two male figures who accompanied tubman had never been on the 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 direct them. Despite dangers and risks, the men were glad for their good fortune because they entrusted to moses, as she was known among her people. During this moonlit track, Harriet Tubman decided to move off the highway and across an open field. The field ran out and she faced an unfamiliar river. She walked along the banks to see if there might be a bridge or a boat to get to the other side. After a fruitless search fearing sunrise might overtake them, tubman insisted they would have to cross on foot. Fearingmen refused drowning more than the slaveholders lash. Rather than waste her breath, aded across alone. After she made it to the other side, the two men followed. They came to an isolated cabin where they could take shelter. They made it to freedom a few days later. It was incredibly dangerous to assist fugitives on the road. Suspects were thrown in jail with the flimsiest of evidence. Samuel green, a free black minister in dorchester county, tubmans home county was , investigated by authorities. He was suspected of having harboring a group involved in a mass escape in the summer of 1857. His home was searched by the local constable, 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 10 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. Tubman crafted her expeditions with extreme care. The white abolitionist reported that the woman known as moses would use music and to signal to fugitives hidden along the road. She directed them by her songs. As to whether they could show themselves or must 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 passed through a down her maryland home during daylight she walked the streets , with a large sunbonnet over her face and two live sows. When she spotted one of her former masters approaching, she made the chickens flap and she avoided eye contact and tended to her birds and passed inches from the former master. Her steel nerves and her ingenuity combined to make her one of the most intrepid workers within the underground railroad. Harriet was nearly always prepared with a change of costume or other diversion. Pride, she confided to her suffer just colleagues in 1904, i can say what most conductors cannot say, i never ran my train off the track and i never lost the passenger. There were only a handful of conductors who gained notoriety before Harriet Tubman came onto the scene. All of them were white men and most of them were known as abductors who traveled into the south to assist fugitives. A specialized and dangerous business. The reasons these white man became identified as abductors or conductors is because they were caught, which in all but one case curtailed their underground railroad activities. In 1844, a massachusetts sea captain, Jonathan Walker was , detained offshore in florida with a boatload of fugitives. Walker was caught in the act of assisting runaways as he used the open seas as his escape route. Convicted by a pensacola journ , he was locked into a pillar in where he was pelted with rocks them rotten eggs. He was given excessive fines and forced to serve a year in jail before antislavery friends could raise enough cash to secure his release. Before he was released and sent on his way, he received a punishment which would become infamous. He was branded on the hand by a u. S. Marshall with the mark ss for slave stealer. A hymn was composed which ended with the verse, then let that manley righthand bold. Expanded palm shall prophecy salvation for the slaves. He was there all along the road to freedom with Harriet Tubman as were others. Good thesis topics for you students out there. Fairfield was the most unusual of the born the son of a three, slaveholder but renounced his birthright to spend his time and energy liberating slaves, assisting them all the way to canada. Yalees torrey was a educated minister who resigned his post at a church in providence in 1838 to become involved in the underground railroad. He was caught transporting a slave family out of virginia in 1843. He was sentenced to six years hard labor in the maryland penitentiary. He died while incarcerated and became a martyr to the cause. Equally infamous, the reverend Calvin Fairbanks learned to hate slavery when he was a student at Oberlin College in ohio. By 1837, he began making trips into kentucky to transport slaves to freedom helping them across the ohio river. Over his years with the underground railroad, he smuggled 50 slaves to freedom. He began with a 15yearold girl who the Ohio Underground Railroad conductor adopted into his family. Fairbanks spirited the girl away from her 80yearold master in Montgomery County kentucky. Fifth in direct descent from her master being , the great great granddaughter of a slave whom he took as his mistress at the age of 14. Now he was expecting to make this girl his mistress. This kind of sensationalism became standard abolitionist fare, unveiling the evils of slavery. As was this anonymous painting of an 1850 slaves sale in lexington, kentucky. John brown always called harriet that signaledal, his highest esteem for her and that she was a warrior. In the wake of john browns death, Harriet Tubman participated in a public rescue in upstate new york. In 1860, charles, a fugitive slave was being held by , authorities in troy, new york. Tubman was visiting a troy relative when his fate was being determined in a courtroom. She took props into the chamber that made her look very innocuous. Tubman was standing at the back of the room when it was announced that 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, he was manacled tubman maneuvered herself into , position to take action. The frail old woman surprised the guard by wrenching him free and dragging him down the stairs into the waiting arms of comrades. An eyewitness reported she was repeatedly beaten over the head with police mens clubs but she never released her hold. Bleeding and half conscious, he was hauled down to the river and brought across the river on a skip. Authorities on the opposite side were laying in wait. Once he reached the other side, he was taken back into custody judgessed to a chamber. His boat was followed by a ferry onh 400 abolitionist bent protecting him. Tubman rallied followers to storm the building where he was being held. They wreaked havoc. Harriet and other women brought him out and put him into the first wagon passing and started him for the west. She troy times described had bested lawyers, editors, public man, private individuals have all been rescued. The rankandfile were black. African fury is entitled to claim the greatest share in the rescue. Tubman had earned the name of moses on the underground railroad, but was also a joshua as well. She later recalled during his shot was fine like hail above her head. Tubman knew what most americans would soon discover, when john what john brown had tried to demonstrate a few months before, slavery was war. Tubman symbolizes the most powerful and purest elements of the underground railroad. Righteous selfdetermination, defeat of unjust laws through collective resistance