Previous by Date | Next by Date | Date Index
Previous by Thread | Next by Thread
| Thread Index
| LM_NET
Archive
| |
I am a quilter and my teacher/quilt shop owner assures me that the Underground RR stories are just that - stories. There would be quilts to show it and there are not. Lisa McCulloch, Librarian Richland High School 5201 Holiday Lane North Richland Hills, TX 76180 Where learners become effective users of ideas and information. -----Original Message----- From: School Library Media & Network Communications [mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Mary Ludwick Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 8:43 PM To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU Subject: [LM_NET] Underground railroad and quilts Fergus Bordewich disputes the information that quilts were used to lead the way on the Underground Railroad. Here is part of a recent article: Legend has it that displaying a quilt with a black square in the center designated a safe house. But there is scant evidence to back this up. So it's not surprising that the intriguing (if only recently invented) tale of escape maps encoded in antebellum quilts - soon to be enshrined in a Central Park memorial to Frederick Douglass, as well as in a metastasizing library of children's books and teachers' lesson plans - should also seize the popular imagination.But faked history serves no one, especially when it buries important truths that have been hidden far too long. The "freedom quilt" myth is just the newest acquisition in a congeries of bogus, often bizarre, legends attached to the Underground Railroad. Despite a lack of documentation, tales of actual tunnels through which fugitives supposedly fled persist in communities from the Canadian border to the Mason-Dixon Line. Legend has elevated to near superhuman status the underground conductor Harriet Tubman, typically claiming that she led north more than 300 slaves. The actual number was closer to 70, according to a Tubman biographer, Kate Clifford Larson. The truth takes nothing away from Ms. Tubman, a remarkable woman by any measure, but her deification has obscured the work of many lesser-known African-American activists - among them New York's David Ruggles, who organized the city's underground in the 1830s and helped more than 600 former slaves to freedom. Such fictions rely for their plausibility on the premise that the operations of the Underground Railroad were so secret that the truth is essentially unknowable. In fact, there is abundant documentation of the underground's activities to be found in antebellum antislavery newspapers, narratives of escape written by former slaves and the recollections of participants recorded after the Civil War. None mention quilts, tunnels or, with the rarest of exceptions, any hiding place more exotic than a barn or attic. .........article continues at: http://tinyurl.com/2hn5ur The article says Mr. Bordewich has written a book: Bound for Canaan: The Undergroudn Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. Mary Croix Ludwick, Librarian K-5 Thomas Haley Elem, Irving, Texas (near Dallas) ludwick@swbell.net (home address) mludwick@irvingisd.net (school address) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL 3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation. * LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ * LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/ * EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/sub/ * LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL 3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation. * LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ * LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/ * EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/sub/ * LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html --------------------------------------------------------------------