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Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
Norton. Jan. 2015. 320p. maps. notes. index. ISBN 9780393244076. $26.95. HIST
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Preeminent scholar Foner (DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia Univ.; The Fiery Trial; Reconstruction) adds to his impressive oeuvre with this fascinating study of the Underground Railroad. The author eschews the common approach of documenting the phenomenon from the South, instead centering his monograph on New York City. Through individuals such as abolitionist Sydney Howard Gay and minister Charles Ray, he demonstrates that ferrying escaped slaves from the city's waterfront to other locales throughout the North was fraught with extreme danger. This was especially true after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, when political and social elites in the city worked with their Southern counterparts to seize escaped slaves, and even free African Americans, in order to preserve their close economic ties.
VERDICT This seminal work is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the United States from the beginning of the sectional conflict between the North and the South to the conclusion of the Civil War. Readers should also strongly consider Passages to Freedom, edited by David W. Blight. [See Prepub Alert, 7/21/14.]
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