Underground Railroad

Examples of Underground Railroad in the following topics:

• The Underground Railroad

  • The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by nineteenth-century slaves to escape to free states and Canada.
  • The escape network of the Underground Railroad was not literally underground or a railroad.
  • The Underground Railroad consisted of meeting points, secret routes, transportation, safe houses, and assistance provided by abolitionists and sympathizers.
  • Estimates vary widely, but at least 30,000 slaves, and potentially more than 100,000, escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad.
  • A worker on the Underground Railroad, Tubman made 13 trips to the South, helping to free more than 70 people.

• Slavery and Liberty

  • The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by black slaves to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause.
  • One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the "Railroad" .
  • The escape network was not literally underground nor a railroad, but consisted of meeting points, secret routes, transportation, safe houses, and assistance provided by abolitionist sympathizers.
  • However, the severity of this measure led to gross abuses and defeated its purpose; the number of abolitionists increased, the operations of the Underground Railroad became more efficient, and refugees from slavery continued to flee toward the North.
  • Many slaves fled through the Underground Railroad, seeking freedom in the North.

• Conclusion: The State of Slavery before the War

  • The Underground Railroad, formed in the early nineteenth century as a network of abolitionists and sympathizers who provided safe passage to escaping slaves, is one such example of resistance.
  • One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the Railroad.

• War of Black Liberation

  • Harriet Tubman, though most widely recognized for her contributions to freeing slaves by the Underground Railroad, was also a spy who used her knowledge of the country's terrain to gain important intelligence for the Union Army.

• Free Blacks in the South

  • Robert Purvis, born free in Charleston; became an active abolitionist in Philadelphia, supported the Underground Railroad, and used his inherited wealth to create services for African Americans.

• Slavery in the Antebellum Period

  • Many slaves fought back and some died resisting this sort of treatment, though some managed to escape to non-slave states and Canada, aided by the Underground Railroad.

• From Gradualism to Abolition

  • Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting the Underground Railroad.

• The Molly Maguires

  • In the 1870s, the Reading Railroad blamed the deals of two dozen mine foremen and administrators on a secret society of Irishmen called the "Molly Maguires. " Although the Reading Railroad hired a Pinkerton undercover detective to investigate, it is highly probable that most of the men accused and executed for being Molly Maguires were innocent.
  • Molly Maguire history is sometimes presented as the persecution of an underground movement that was motivated by personal vendettas, and sometimes as a struggle between organized labor and powerful industrial forces.
  • By the 1870s, powerful financial syndicates controlled the railroads and the coalfields.
  • Gowen, the president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad as well as the Coal and Iron Company, had built a combination of his own, bringing all of the mine operators into an employers' association known as the Anthracite Board of Trade.
  • In addition to the railroad, Gowen owned two-thirds of the coal mines in southeastern Pennsylvania.

• Theatre and Novels

  • The counterculture of the 1960s gave rise to new forms of media such as underground newspapers, literature, theater, and cinema.
  • In mid-1966, the cooperative Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) was formed.
  • A UPS roster published in November 1966 listed 14 underground papers, 11 of them in the United States.
  • There also existed an underground press network within the U.S. military.
  • The GI underground press produced a few hundred titles during the Vietnam War.

• The Coal Strike of 1902

  • On May 12, 1902, the miners went out on strike and were followed by the maintenance employees, who had much steadier jobs and did not face the special dangers of underground work.
  • Morgan was invested in the strike, as his business interests included the Reading Railroad, one of the largest employers of miners.