HARRIET TUBMAN

A comprehensive overview of Tubman’s life and work, co-authored by one of her descendants.

Tubman is best known as a conductor on the Underground Railroad who led her passengers from enslavement in Maryland to freedom in the North and Canada. Yet her acts of heroism, advocacy, and service extend beyond those risky journeys, and Wiesen and Daniels have compiled them all in order “to fill the gaps and correct inaccuracies.” As the United States moved into Civil War, Tubman was a spy, scout, and nurse in the Union Army, using her navigational skills and photographic memory to lead raids and advances. In spite of remaining illiterate throughout her life, Tubman spent more than 50 years after the war in Auburn, New York, supporting her family by fighting for equal voting rights, employment, and dignity for formerly enslaved people, culminating in her creation of the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. Her extraordinary achievements and high-profile collaborators are methodically organized and episodically divided into digestible chunks that sometimes run the risk of being overly simplified, repetitive, or both. However, with Daniels—Tubman’s great-great-great-grandniece—as co-author, familiar aspects of Tubman’s story are accentuated and expanded with what she has gleaned from family lore. Character traits and sensibilities, like Tubman’s famed curative skills as an herbalist, are placed within a powerful context, linked not only to an abridged American narrative, but also to a family’s African roots and her descendants’ ongoing work. Having had a front-row seat to the many ways Tubman has been studied, dissected, and honored both in the United States and beyond, Daniels grants both authoritative history and authentic humanity to a story frequently segmented for political expediency or specialized study, leaving readers with a fuller understanding of Tubman's unique bravery, fortitude, and leadership.

A solid addition to the growing body of work preserving the legacy of one of America’s greatest heroes.