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The Struggle Against Slavery: The Abolition Movement and Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania Bibliography
Further Reading

Bacon, Margaret Hope. Valiant Friend: The Life of Lucretia Mott. New York: Walker & Co., 1980.

Bacon provides a solid, readable biography of one of the great abolitionists and women's rights advocates of the nineteenth century.

Bentley, Judith. Dear Friend: Thomas Garrett & William Still, Collaborators on the Underground Railroad. New York: Cobblehill Books, 1997.

A good choice for young adults, this carefully researched narrative also contains several excellent images and illustrations.

Blackett, R. J. M.. African Americans in Pennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives. 'Freedom, or the Martyr's Grave': Black Pittsburgh's Aid to the Fugitive Slave. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1997.

Pittsburgh does not receive as much attention as Philadelphia in terms of Underground Railroad history. This article offers one of the best overviews of the fugitive aid activities in the state's second largest city.

Blockson, Charles L. Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994.

This is probably the most useful and reliable field guide available for tourists who are interested in tracking the Underground Railroad.

Borome, Joseph A. "The Vigilant Committee of Philadelphia." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography:42 (1968): 320-352.

An important scholarly contribution, this article examines records of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia during the 1830s and 1840s.

Collison, Gary. Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.

A beautifully written book, this fascinating biography concerns a Virginia slave who escaped through Pennsylvania on his way to freedom.

Gara, Larry. The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.

Gara's monograph remains the most sophisticated work of scholarship on the origins of the Underground Railroad.

Gara, Larry. "William Still and the Underground Railroad." Pennsylvania History 28 (1961): 33-44.

Gara offers a provocative portrait of the Underground Railroad's key figure in Pennsylvania.

Nash, Gary B. and Jean R. Soderlund. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

This book provides a strong overview of antislavery politics in Pennsylvania during the eighteenth century.

Slaughter, Thomas P. Bloody Dawn: The Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Covering a forgotten but still critical episode in the coming of the Civil War, Slaughter brings to life the great tension of the era.

Soderlund, Jean R. Quakers and Slavery: A Divided Spirit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Soderlund explains the complicated realities of the Quaker movement and their connection to antislavery sentiment.

Still, William. The Underground Railroad. Philadelphia, PA: Porter & Coates, 1872.

This book is the most complete first-hand account ever written about the Underground Railroad.

Switala, William J. Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001.

Switala does a good job of compiling information on various possible routes used by runaway slaves as they passed through Pennsylvania.

Ullman, Victor. Martin Delany: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1971.

Ullman offers an insightful study of an important figure in the African-American community in western Pennsylvania.


Web Guide

Haverford College, Quaker and Special Collections, “Quakers & Slavery,” http://trilogy.brynmawr.edu/speccoll/quakersandslavery/

This joint project between the Quaker repositories at Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges features online exhibits on Quaker involvement in the American antislavery movements, and includes primary sources, image galleries, interactive maps, a timeline, and scholarly commentary on early Quaker protests, radical Quaker women, the rescue of Jane Johnson, and other subjects.

National Geographic Online, "The Underground Railroad" http://www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/

Terrific interactive site targeted at students

National Park Service, "National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom" http://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm

An important resource for teachers and tourists, this website contains a wealth of information, providing both national context and specific local information

PBS, "Africans in America" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/

Comprehensive site full of original analysis and fascinating primary sources

University of Michigan, "Making of America" http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/

Massive collection of 19th-century texts, includes several important recollections by national Underground Railroad figures such as Levi Coffin and J.W. Loguen

University of Pittsburgh, “Free at Last? Slavery in Pittsburgh in the 18th and 19th Centuries,” http://www.library.pitt.edu/freeatlast/intro.html

A rich on-line exhibit of documents, stories, and images, with video narration that documents the history of slavery and freedom in Pittsburgh from the arrival of African Americans in western Pennsylvania through Reconstruction.

University of Virginia, "United States Historical Census Data Browser" http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/

Incredibly useful, this site allows visitors to create tables on U.S. population trends from 1790-1960; valuable for analyzing free black and slave demographics

University of Virginia, Valley of the Shadow, Underground Railroad in Franklin County http://www.iath.virginia.edu/jbrown/master.html

Contains invaluable first-hand accounts of John Brown's 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry

West Virginia University, "To be More than Equal: Many Lives of Martin R. Delany" http://web.archive.org/web/20120424045333/http://www.libraries.wvu.edu...

Rich, detailed site devoted to one of the key figures in the Underground Railroad in western Pennsylvania

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