| Abandoned Tracks: The Underground Railroad in Washington County, Pennsylvania Contributor(s): Mainwaring, W. Thomas (Author) |
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ISBN: 0268103577 ISBN-13: 9780268103576 Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press OUR PRICE: $33.25 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: April 2018 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic (dc, De, Md, Nj, Ny, Pa) - History | United States - 19th Century - History | African American |
| Dewey: 326.809 |
| LCCN: 2018011944 |
| Physical Information: 0.75" H x 6" W x 9" (1.27 lbs) 306 pages |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Topical - Black History - Geographic Orientation - Pennsylvania |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In Abandoned Tracks, W. Thomas Mainwaring bridges the gap between scholarly and popular perceptions of the Underground Railroad. Historians have long recognized that many aspects of the Underground Railroad have been mythologized by emotion, memory, time, and wishful thinking. Mainwaring's book is a rich, in-depth attempt to separate fact from fiction in one local area, while also contributing to a scholarly discussion of the Underground Railroad by placing Washington County, Pennsylvania, in the national context. Just as the North was not consistent in its perspective on the Civil War and the slavery issue, the Underground Railroad had distinct regional variations. Washington County had a well-organized abolition movement, even though its members helped a comparatively small number of fugitive slaves escape, largely because of the small nearby slave population in what was then western Virginia. Its origins as a slave county make it an interesting case study of the transition from slavery to freedom and of the origins of black and white abolitionism. Abandoned Tracks lends much to the ongoing scholarly debate about the extent, scope, and nature of the Underground Railroad. This book is written both for scholars of abolitionism and the Underground Railroad and for an audience interested in local history. |
Contributor Bio(s): Mainwaring, W. Thomas: - W. Thomas Mainwaring is a professor of history at Washington & Jefferson College. |