Escaped slave, Civil War spy, scout, and nurse, and champion of women's suffrage, Harriet Tubman is an icon of heroism. Perhaps most famous for leading enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad, Tubman was dubbed "Moses" by followers. But abolition and the close of the Civil War were far from the end of her remarkable career. Tubman continued to fight for black civil rights, and campaign fiercely for women's suffrage, throughout her life.

In this vivid, concise narrative supplemented by primary documents, Kristen T. Oertel introduces readers to Tubman's extraordinary life, from the trauma of her childhood slavery to her civil rights activism in the late nineteenth century, and in the process reveals a nation's struggle over its most central injustices.

About the Author

Kristen T. Oertel is the Mary Frances Barnard Associate Professor of nineteenth-century American history at the University of Tulsa. She is the author of Bleeding Borders: Race, Gender, and Violence in Pre-Civil War Kansas, and co-author with Marilyn Blackwell of Frontier Feminist: Clarina Howard Nichols and the Politics of Motherhood.

Reviews

Reviewer #1- Dana Weiner (Laurier)

This book is clearly tailored for academic use, and for undergraduate classroom assignment. The topic and approach seem likely to appeal to that audience.

I think that a book on this topic would be welcome, ... I think that a book on this subject would be useful from a teaching perspective.

Scholars' and students' interest in the Underground Railroad and in African American women's history and early civil rights activism are ever-expanding, and this allure appears likely to continue.

The topics the author flags for inclusion in each chapter seem appropriate, relevant, and interesting.

Reviewer #2- Carol Faulkner (Syracuse)

I think the author puts Harriet Tubman into a fresh context that will be sure to stimulate discussion among students, in particular "slavery's demise on the border and fugitive slaves' importance to dismantling the slave power and instigating the Civil War." I have no disagreements with the book's assumptions.

The author's approach to Harriet Tubman is on the "leading edge" of the field. Professors will be able to use it to discuss new historiographic trends in an accessible way: slave resistance, women's activism in the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the relationship between race and women's rights.

The book is very timely (the nation is remembering the 150th anniversary of the Civil War), and because little new information about Harriet Tubman is likely to emerge, it will have a long shelf life.

I strongly recommend this book for publication, and I would be happy to assign it in a women's history survey. I would definitely recommend it to faculty members who teach the US history survey. This short, accessible biography captures the life and times of one of the major historical figures in nineteenth-century America. I especially applaud the combination of up-to-date scholarly analysis with primary sources, which restores Tubman to her proper place in American history.

Reviewer #3 -Stephen Hall (Case Western)

As currently conceptualized, the proposed title is useful for lower-level undergraduates as opposed to more advanced undergraduate students. It would be more useful as a supplemental text than a main text. Courses focusing on the antebellum era can draw upon a wealth of longer and shorter autobiographical and biographical works and primary material on African American life in the period.

Beyond this, the author suggests creating a website. The website can serve as an important tool to introduce students to documents and a host of visual material on Harriet Tubman.. The website is a novel idea and would greatly enhance the presentation of the material. This is the one exciting aspect of this proposal.

Book Information
ISBN 9780415825122
Author Kristen T. Oertel
Format Paperback
Page Count 168
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 249g