by Eric Foner
First published 2015
Eric Foner reconstructs the hidden operations of New York City's underground railroad through newly discovered evidence. The Pulitzer Prize winning historian shows how slavery persisted in northern states long after abolition, with slave catchers prowling New York streets to seize free blacks and fugitive slaves alike. Foner traces how the city's free black community joined with white abolitionists to form the New York Vigilance Committee in 1835, creating networks that would help over 3,000 enslaved people escape to freedom between 1830 and 1860. Drawing on the secret records kept by Sydney Howard Gay, a key organizer, Foner reveals the individual stories behind this resistance movement. He demonstrates how these vigilance committees spread across the North, collaborating to move fugitives from the upper South through Philadelphia and New York to Canada. The book shows how the controversy over fugitive slaves intensified sectional tensions in the 1850s, contributing to the crisis that led to Civil War.
Genres: 20th-century, 19th-century, social-justice, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: hidden-history, resistance
Setting: New York City, Canada, Philadelphia
Period: 1830-1860, 1850s
320 pages · Hardcover · W. W. Norton & Company
Content warnings: racism, slavery