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events
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Mary Kay Ricks, author of the newly published Escape on the Pearl: The Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad about the attempted mass escape by schooner from Washington DC in April 1848. The author will be making appearances in Washington, DC (February 10 and 22), Baltimore, Maryland (February 13), and Silver Spring, Maryland (February 17).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/horizon/aug98/pearl.htm
NEW WEBSITE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Tom Calarco has developed a new website on the Underground Railroad. Tom has written on the Underground Railroad in New York State and is currently working on an encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad.
http://undergroundrailroadconductor.com
Tom writes: I hope you all will take a look and offer suggestions or information on the forum page -- see the link on the left of the home page. The site still needs a lot of work and some pages are still unfinished, but I plan to keep modifying things, in any case, so it won't be static. You also will see a links page; please send me other links you think should be included. Finally, please, let other researchers know about my site. I am working on an Underground Railroad encyclopedia and hope this site will help me obtain the latest and most accurate information.
Joe Bresler writes: I am happy to announce that my website devoted to the history and cultural history of the American folk song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" has now launched. The site may be accessed here:
http://www.followthedrinkinggourd.org/
Much of the song’s enduring appeal derives from its perceived status as a unique, historical remnant harkening back to the pre-Civil War South. No other such map songs survive. But the song as it appears in roughly 200 recordings, dozens of songbooks, several award-winning children's books and many other places could not possibly have been sung by escaping slaves. The signature line in the chorus, "for the old man is awaitin' for to carry you to freedom," was written by Lee Hays eighty years after the end of the Civil War. Previous explanations of the Drinking Gourd song whatever their accuracy at least had the virtue of being internally consistent and neatly compelling! I look at how the song has been interpreted over the last 10 years wrongly, I believe, in virtually all the existing websites, teacher’s guides, books and other media addressing it. I then examine how this flawed research assumed its current dominant position. I believe that versions of the Drinking Gourd song were sung by Black Americans dating back to at least the early 20th century, and likely earlier than that.
However, I propose a tentative new theory to explain the song, which holds that there was no Drinking Gourd song complete with map information sung in the antebellum South. Appendices include a timeline, samples of 23 of the over 200 recorded versions of the song, and an analysis of the adult and children’s books based on the song. There is more to come.
I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Joel Bresler, 250 E. Emerson Rd., Lexington, MA 02420
EXHIBIT: CHALLENGING SLAVERY IN MARYLAND OPENS FEBRUARY 2007
The exhibit, “At Freedom's Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland,” opens at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore on February 11, 2007. The Maryland Historical Society is offering a series of associated programming over the next several months. To accompany the exhibit, the Maryland Historical Society will also publish a new book by T. Stephen Whitman, Challenging
Slavery in the Chesapeake: Black and White Resistance to Human Bondage.
For information about events, go to the Maryland Historical Society website:
http://www.mdhs.org/calendar.html
Christopher Densmore
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
February 5, 2007 |
