HIST 280GThe Underground Railroad

Catalog

HIST 280G - The Underground Railroad Professor Anne Bailey Fall 2026 Course Description: The Underground Railroad was a network of trails and safehouses which provided refuge for slaves escaping from the South. In many ways, the Underground Railroad (UGRR) was the first great civil rights movement in the United States. In antebellum America, those troubled years before the Civil War began in 1861, Harriet Tubman, its most famous conductor, and her multicultural band of abolitionists were a part of a groundswell movement to uproot the institution of slavery by freeing one enslaved person at a time. Through this course, students will learn about the people and the networks of the UGRR, but they will also learn about the history of slavery in general. Furthermore, this course has a strong hands-on component in that students will explore various methods used to learn more about slavery and the UGRR including the oral history method. There will also be a field trip to the Harriet Tubman statue and the Downtown Binghamton Freedom Trail. The course concludes with a major multi-media group project which will map the UGRR across the country.