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Paths Toward Freedom:
A Bibliography of the Underground Railroad


Cheryl Goza Smith and Raymond L. Collins

The Underground Railroad movement in 19th century America is one of the most significant chapters in the history of African-Americans. This movement saw abolitionists and anti-slavery individuals throughout northern and southern states provide refuge and means of travel for escaping slaves. At the end of the railroad, these refugees found their way to living independent lives in Canada and in some of the anti-slavery states, such as Michigan. The celebrated Harriet Tubman, a former slave, made at least 19 treks into slave territory to take more than 300 slaves to the North. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana were the states where much of the Underground Railroad movement was reported to take place, but Illinois and other states had their routes also.

While this bibliography is not a comprehensive research tool, it is intended to provide the librarian and reader a list of the literature relating to the Underground Railroad. Classics, such as Wilbur Sieberfs The Underground Railroad From Slavery To Freedom and Larry Gara's The Liberty Line, are listed to give the reader a general overview. For the reader interested in Underground Railroad activity in Illinois and other states, sections of Underground Railroad movement in these places also are provided. Other readers also might be interested in understanding the people who were involved in the Underground Railroad. What were their lives like? What did it mean to be escaping to an unknown land? What was the slave culture in the old south truly like? The last section in this bibliography also addresses these questions.

The Underground Railroad in the United States

Blockson, Charles L. The Underground Railroad: First Person Narratives of Escapes to Freedom in the North. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1987. Breyfogle, William A. Make Free: The Story of the Underground Railroad. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1958.

Buckmaster, Henrietta. Let My People Go: The Story of the Underground Railroad and the Growth of the Abolition Movement. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941. Reprint, Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1992.

Gara, Larry. The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1961. Reprint, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.

Haskins, James. Get on Board: The Story of the Underground Railroad. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1993. (for juvenile readers)

Johnson, Homer Uri. From Dixie to Canada: Romance and Realities of the Underground Railroad. 2d ed. Orwell, Ohio: H. U. Johnson, 1896. Reprint, Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

Mitchell, William M. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. London: W. Tweedie, 1860. Reprint, Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

Sawyer, Kem Knapp. The Underground Railroad in American History. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, 1997. (for juvenile readers)

Siebert, Wilbur Henry. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. New York: Macmillan, 1898. Reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1968.

Still, William. The Underground Rail Road. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1872. Reprint, Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1970.

The Underground Railroad in Illinois

Blazer, D.N. "The Underground Railroad of McDonough County, Illinois." Journal of the Illinois

* Cheryl Goza Smith and Raymond L. Collins, Reference Department, Illinois State Library, Springfield.

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State Historical Society v.15 (October 1922-January 1923): 579-591.

Cooley, Verna. "Illinois and the Underground Railroad to Canada." Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society Publication No. 23 (1917): 76-98.

Lange, Pamela Larson. "Owen Lovejoy Versus the Town of Princeton." Thesis, Western Illinois University, 1984.

Ryan, J.H. "Chapter from the History of the Underground Railroad in Illinois." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society v.8 (April 1915): 23-30.

Schmidt, O.L. "Underground Railroad." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society v.l 8 no. 3 (October 1925): 703-717.

Smith, George Owen. The Lovejoy Shrine: the Lovejoy Station on the Underground Railroad. Princeton, Ill.:Bureau County Tribune, 1949.

Turner, Glennette Tilley. The Underground Railroad in DuPage County, Illinois. Wheaton, Ill.: Newman Educational Publishers, 1986.

Yowell, Reina S. Mrs. Yowell, et al Memoir. Springfield, Ill.: Oral History Office, Sangamon State University, 1989.

The Underground Railroad in Other States

Blockson, Charles L. The Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1995. (traveler's guide to historic sites)

Blockson, Charles L. The Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania. Jacksonville, N.C.: Flame International, 1981.

Cohen, Anthony. The Underground Railroad in Montgomery County, Maryland: A History and Driving Guide. Rockville, Md.: Montgomery County Historical Society, 1995.

Siebert, Wilbur Henry. The Mysteries of Ohio's Underground Railroads. Columbus, Ohio: Long's College Book Company, 1951.

Siebert, Wilbur Henry. The Underground Railroad in Massachusetts. Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 1936.

Siebert, Wilbur Henry. Vermont's Anti-Slavery and Underground Railroad Record, With a Map and Illustrations. Columbus, Ohio: Spahr and Glenn Company, 1937.

Smedley, Robert Clemens. History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Office of the Journal, 1883. Reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968.

Strother, Horatio T. The Underground Railroad in Connecticut. Middletown, Conn.: Wesley an University Press, 1962.

Turner, Glennette Tilley. Take a Walk in Their Footsteps: Classroom Ideas for Retracing the Underground Railroad. Glen Ellyn, Ill.: Newman Educational Publishers, 1988.

The Underground Railroad in New England. [Boston, Mass.]: American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, Region 1 [1976.]

United States Department of the Interior. National Park Service. The Underground Railroad: Official Map and Guide. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996. (map)

Leaders of the Underground Railroad:

Henry Box Brown

Brown, Henry Box. Narrative of Henry Box Brown, Who Escaped From Slavery Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide. Boston: Brown and Steams, 1849. Reprint, Philadelphia: Rhistoric Publications, 1969.

William Wells Brown

Ellison, Curtis W. William Wells Brown and Martin R.. Delany: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1978.

Farrison, William Edward. William Wells Brown: Author & Reformer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.

Heermance, J. Noel. William Wells Brown and Clotelle: A Portrait of the Artist in the First Negro Novel. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1969.

Whelchel, L.H. My Chains Fell Off: William Wells Brown, Fugitive Abolitionist. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985.

Levi Coffin

Coffin, Levi. Reminiscences of Levi Coffin. Third Edition. Cincinnati: The Robert Clarke Company, 1898. Reprint, Salem, N.H.: Ayer Company, 1992.

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Frederick Douglass Josiah Henson

Andrews, William L. and William S. McFeely, eds. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written By Himself: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Critcism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.

Bontemps, Arna. Free At Last: The Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dodd Mead, 1971.

Douglass, Frederick. The Oxford Frederick Douglass Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Foner, Philip Sheldon. Frederick Douglass, A Biography. New York: Citadel Press, 1964.

McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass. New York: Norton, 1991.

Petrie, William L., ed. Bibliography of the Frederick Douglass Library at Cedar Hill. Fort Washington, Md.: Silesia, 1995.

Quarles, Benjamin. Frederick Douglass. New York: Da Capo Press, 1997.

Voss, Frederick. Majestic in His Wrath: A Pictorial Life of Frederick Douglass. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.

Calvin Fairbank

Fairbank, Calvin. Reverend Calvin Fairbank During Slavery Times: How He Fought the Good Fight to Prepare the Way. Chicago: R. R. McCabe, 1890. Reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

Thomas Garrett

Bentley, Judith. Dear Friend: Thomas Garrett & William Still, Collaborators on the Underground Railroad. New York: Cobblehill Books, 1997.

McGowan, James A. Station Master on the Underground Railroad: The Life and Letters of Thomas Garrett. Moylan, Pa.: Whimsie Press, 1977.

William Lloyd Garrison

Merrill, Walter McIntosh. Against Wind and Tide, A Biography of William Lloyd Garrison. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963.

Thomas, John L. The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison, A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.

Josiah Henson

Beattie, Jessie Louise. Black Moses, The Real Uncle Tom. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1957.

Cavanah, Frances. The Truth About the Man Behind the Book That Sparked the War Between the States. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975.

Henson, Josiah. Uncle Tom's Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Reverend Josiah Henson. London: Christian Age Office, 1877. Reprint, London: Cass, 1971.

John Hossack

In Memoriam: John Hossack. Ottawa, Ill.: The Republican-Times, 1892.

Jermain Wesley Loguen

Hunter, Carol M. To Set The Captives Free: Reverend Jermain Wesley Loguen and the Struggle for Freedom in Central New York 1835-1872. New York: Garland, 1993.

Owen Lovejoy

Magdol, Edward. Owen Lovejoy, Abolitionist in Congress. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1967.

James Miller McKim

Cohen, William. "James Miller McKim: Pennsylvania Abolitionist." Ph.D. Thesis, New York University, 1968.

John P. Parker

Sprague, Stuart Seely, ed. His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John R Parker, Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground Railroad. New York: Norton, 1996.

John Rankin

Ritchie, Andrew. The Soldier, The Battle, & The Victory, Being a Brief Account of the Work of Reverend John Rankin in the Anti-Slavery Cause. Cincinnati: Western Tract and Book Society, 1876.

William Still

Bentley, Judith. Dear Friend: Thomas Garrett & William Still, Collaborators on the Underground Railroad. New York: Cobblehill Books, 1997.

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Khan, Lurey. One Day, Levin...He Be Free: William Still and the Underground Railroad. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1972.

Still, William. A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of the Colored People of Philadelphia in the City Railway Cars: And a Defence of William Still. Philadelphia: Merrihew, Printers, 1867. Reprint, Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1970.

Harriet Tubman

Bentley, Judith. Harriet Tubman. New York: F. Watts, 1990.

Bradford, Sarah H. Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. Auburn, New York: W. J. Moses, 1869. Reprint, Salem, N.H.: Ayer, 1992.

Humphreville, Frances T. Harriet Tubman, Flame of Freedom. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967. Petry, Ann Lane. Harriet Tubman, Conductor on the Underground Railroad. New York: Harper Trophy, 1996.

Jonathan Baldwin Turner

Carriel, Mary Turner. The Life of Jonathan Baldwin Turner. Jacksonville, Ill.: 1911. Reprint, Urbana, Ill.:University of Illinois Press, 1961.

Samuel Ringgold Ward

Burke, Ronald K. Samuel Ringgold Ward: Christian Abolitionist. New York: Garland, 1995.

Delia Webster

Runyon, Randolph and William Albert Davis, collaborators. Delia Webster and the Underground Railroad. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.

James Williams

Williams, James. Life & Adventures of James Williams, A Fugitive Slave, With a Full Description of the Underground Railroad. 4th ed. San Francisco:

Womens Union Book and Job Office, 1874. Reprint, Saratoga, Calif.: R & E Research Associates, 1969.

Slavery and Southern Culture

Alter, Jonathan et al. "The Long Shadow of Slavery." Newsweek v. CXXX (December 8, 1997): 58+.

Candler, M.A. "Beginnings of Slavery in Georgia." Magazine of History v. 14 (July 1911): 342-351.

Ellis, G.W. "The New Slavery in the South." Journal of International Relations v. 7 (April 1917): 467-488.

Faust, Drew Gilpin. Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Govan, T.P. "Was Plantation Slavery Profitable?" Journal of Southern History v. 8 (November 1942): 513-535.

Gregory, J.P, Jr. "The Question of Slavery in the Kentucky Constitutional Convention of 1849" Filson Club Historical Quarterly v. 23 (April 1949): 89-110.

Haardt, Sara. "The Resulting Enslavement of Masters and Mistresses of Slaves in the Old South." World Today v. 15 (April 1930): 465-474.

Henry, H.M. "Tennessee Slave Laws." Tennessee Historical Magazine v. 2 (September 1916): 175-203.

Kendall, J.S. "Slavery in New Orleans." Louisiana Vistorical Quarterly v. 23 (July 1940): 864-886.

King, Wilma. "Within the Professional Household: Slave Children in the Antebellum South." Historian: a Journal of History v. 59 (Spring 1997): 523-540.

McGraw, Marie Tyler. "Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South." Virginia Magazine of History & Biography v. 105 (Spring 1997): 234-236.

Massey, Gregory D. "The Limits of Antislavery Thought in the Revolutionary Lower South: John Laurens and Henry Laurens." Journal of Southern History v. 63 (August 1997): 495-530.

Moody, V.A. "Slavery on Louisiana Sugar Plantations." Louisiana Historical Quarterly v. 7 (April 1924): 191-303.

Prichard, W. "A Louisiana Sugar Plantation Under the Slavery Regime." Mississippi Valley Historical Review v. 14 (September 1927): 168-178.

Sadlier, Rosemary. Tubman: Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, Her Life in the United States and Canada. Toronto: Umbrella Press, 1997.

Starke, Barbara. Slave Narratives: Accounts of What They Wore. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1990.

Stevenson, Brenda E. Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South. New York: Oxford University Presss, 1996.

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Still, William. The Underground Rail Road: a Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &c., Narrating the Hardships, Hair-Breadth Escapes, and Death Struggles of the Slaves in Their Efforts for Freedom, as Related By Themselves and Others, or Witnessed by the Author; Together with Sketches of Some of the Largest Stockholders and Most Liberal Aiders and Advisers of the Road. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872.

Tyler, Ronnie C. & Lawrence R. Murphy. The Slave Narratives of Texas. Austin, Tex.: Encino Press, 1974.

Woodman, Harold D. "Class, Race, Politics, and the Modernization of the Postbellum South." Journal of Southern History v. 63 (February 1997): 3-22.

Zaborney, John J. "Political Culture in the Nineteenth-Century South: Mississippi, 1830-1900" Historian: a Journal of History v. 59 (Spring 1997): 649-650.

Internet Sites The Underground Railroad

The National Park Service
"Aboard The Underground Railroad"
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/underground

Slave Narratives

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Academic Affairs Library
"Documenting The American South: The Southern Experience in 19th Century America"
http://sunsite.unc.edu/docsouth

University of Houston
History Department
"Excerpts From Slave Narratives"
http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm

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