Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories

Acknowledgments

My decision to work on Tubman’s life stories was inspired by discussions with students in a course on spiritual autobiographies I taught during a year spent at the Harvard Divinity School (1990–1991). I thank my students in that seminar and Connie Buchanan, then director of the Women’s Studies in Religion program, for a wonderful year in which the seed of this book was sown. I contacted William L. Andrews about the original idea in 1993. His enthusiastic response then and over subsequent years has sustained me as I struggled to shape the final volume. I have been very fortunate to have the benefit of his experience, wisdom, and patience throughout the entire lifespan of this project. Other colleagues, often writing books on related subjects , have offered valuable information and insights, including Harriet Alonso, Randall Burkett, Jean Fagan Yellin, Dick Newman, Ann Braude, Mary Helen Washington, Jim Livingston, Sherry Penney, and Milton Sernett. I have accumulated many other debts—quite a few of them to people I have yet to meet in person (thanks to the ease of Internet communications ). I am grateful to Charles Blockson not only for information about his Underground Railroad research collection at Temple University but also for the suggestion that I call James McGowan. An independent scholar and author who had been working on Harriet Tubman for years himself, Jim immediately offered to collaborate with me on this book. He has shared documents from his research and carefully reviewed my drafts and answered queries, all the while encouraging me to remember why this work was important. I am tremendously in his debt. It was also my great good fortune to meet doctoral candidate Kate Larson, whose research acknowledgments xi skills are truly impressive—and matched only by her canny analysis and her generous attitude as a fellow researcher. As was also true with Jim McGowan, where I might have found a competitor, I found a true collegial relationship. Kate’s zealous pursuit of primary documentation and willingness to share her information before publication enabled me to find and correct many a fallacious assumption embedded in earlier versions of the book—whatever errors remain, needless to say, are my own. I gratefully acknowledge the work of the anonymous readers of the massive first draft I sent to the University of Wisconsin Press—thanks to their empathetic but tough-minded comments, I steeled myself to trim 250 pages from the original manuscript and make other changes that I think have improved the book. Mary Gilmore of the Seymour Library in Auburn went far beyond the call of duty, helping me find materials before, during, and after my research visits. Arden Phair of the St. Catharines Museum helped me with my specific information and put me in touch with Dennis Gannon, a skilled independent researcher with a special interest in the Canadian Underground Railroad refugees, who has become another major contributor to my primary source list. Reference and Interlibrary Loan staff of my own Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts have been very helpful, as always, on this project. I also want to thank Melissa Gilmartin, my former graduate student assistant, who did many Internet research tasks for me, as well as Rebecca Green, undergraduate research assistant at Swarthmore College, who transcribed passages from the Emily Howland diaries. Dozens of skilled and attentive research librarians of other collections have also provided invaluable aid. I am grateful to Ann Froines, Lois Rudnick, Judith Smith, and other UMB colleagues who have supported my scholarly work in too many ways to list. Chrissie Atkinson provided me with a quiet place to plug in my computer one summer in Maine. And final heartfelt thanks go to my friends and family, who have patiently endured my expense of time on this project when I might have been doing other things in life—you know who you are. xii Acknowledgments he ife and the ife tories ...