Promotional Information

An exploration of the way history, meaning, and memory have interacted in the process of transforming Harriet Tubman into an American icon

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. “Minty” 11
2. “Moses the Deliverer” 41
3. “General Tubman” 73
4. Sarah Bradford’s Harriet Tubman 105
5. Saint, Seer, and Suffragist 131
6. The Apotheosis of “Aunt Harriet” 165
7. Earl Conrad and the Book That Almost Wasn’t 195
8. “Spirits Rising” 225
9. Pride of Place 255
10. Historians Have Their Say 293
Appendix 321
Notes 325
Bibliography 371
Index 395

About the Author

Milton C. Sernett is Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and History at Syracuse University. Among his books are African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness and Bound for the Promised Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration, both also published by Duke University Press, and North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom.

Reviews

"In this brilliant study, Milton C. Sernett peels back layers of memory regarding both real and imagined events to reveal the fascinating interplay of cultural, political, and social forces that have contributed to Harriet Tubman's near-mythic status. With graceful prose and nuanced analysis, he describes the literary and artistic productions that have shaped our understanding of Tubman over the past one hundred and fifty years: productions that reflect an ever-evolving process of memory and mythmaking by generations of Americans in pursuit of meaningful cultural and historical icons."--Kate Clifford Larson, author of Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero "The product of painstaking research, Milton C. Sernett's book offers a comprehensive description and analysis of the processes by which the historical former slave woman became an iconic figure with shifting and contested significance for multiple audiences during her own long life and into the twenty-first century. In addition to presenting valuable facts for admirers and historians of Harriet Tubman, Sernett uses her example to pose vital questions about the functions, varieties, and tenacity of heroic mythmaking in the lives of communities and nations."--Jean M. Humez, author of Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories