"Harriet": Harriet Tubman, Slavery, and the Underground Railroad

Catalog description

Most Americans who know and love Harriet Tubman know she escaped enslavement, led herself and more than 60 people out of bondage via the Underground Railroad, gave instructions on getting to freedom to 50 or 60 more people, and became a suffragist. However, the many biographies, children's books, and even the biopic "Harriet" about Tubman are all virtually silent on a very important chapter of her life: during the US Civil War, Harriet Tubman worked as a nurse, cook, spy, and scout for the US Army Department of the South. This course will look at two parts of Tubman's life, her enslavement in the Maryland Eastern Shore and freedom via the Underground Railroad, as well as her military service in coastal South Carolina and participation in the Combahee River Raid, which freed 756 blacks enslaved on nine rice plantations six months after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. We will watch the biopic "Harriet" and discusses where it does and does not accord with historical sources about Tubman's life. And, we will tour the "From Slavery to Freedom" exhibit at the Senator John Heinz History Center to learn more about the Underground Railroad, particularly in Western Pennsylvania.