User:RL0919/Scenes

Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, retitled Harriet, the Moses of her People for its later editions, is an authorized biography of Harriet Tubman by Sarah Hopkins Bradford. Bradford based the book on Tubman's personal recollections, journalistic accounts, and accounts from Tubman's friends and supporters. During Tubman's lifetime, the profits from sales of the biography were donated to her. Bradford's depictions have been reused in many subsequent biographies of Tubman, and editions of the book continued to be published through the 20th century and into the 21st.

Background

Harriet Tubman (1822–1913) was an African-American abolitionist and social activist. After escaping slavery, Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including her family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known collectively as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. After the war, she lived near Auburn, New York, where she worked to help former slaves in need and later became an activist for women's suffrage. Tubman's regular income was very limited, so supporters frequently organized fundraising events for her charitable causes and to help with her own expenses.

In 1868, the writer Sarah Hopkins Bradford was recruited to help with a plan to sell a biography of Tubman as a fundraiser. Bradford was the author of several children's books, including biographies of Christopher Columbus and Peter the Great. Her brother, Samuel Hopkins II, was a professor at Auburn Theological Seminary and one of Tubman's supporters. Tubman provided her own personal recollections through interviews with Bradford, who also collected journalistic accounts and solicited letters from Tubman's friends and supporters. Bradford worked quickly to complete the book before leaving on a planned trip to Europe. The publication costs were funded through donations so that all the revenue from sales could go to Tubman.

Publication history

Auburn publisher William J. Moses printed Scenes from the Life of Harriet Tubman in November 1868 so it could be sold at a charity event in December, although its official publication date was given as 1869.

In 1886, at Tubman's request, Bradford released a re-written volume called Harriet, the Moses of her People, published by George R. Lockwood & Sons. In both volumes Harriet Tubman is hailed as a latter-day Joan of Arc. The revision took a more moralistic and literary tone than the prior work, changed of many event descriptions from first to third person, and rearranged depictions of events in chronological order. A final revision in 1901 added an appendix with more stories about Tubman's life.

Reception and influence

Criticized by modern biographers for its artistic license and highly subjective point of view, the book nevertheless provides insight into Tubman's own view of her experiences.

References

Works cited

• Armstrong, Douglas V. (2022). The Archaeology of Harriet Tubman's Life in Freedom. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-5523-7.
• Clinton, Catherine (2004). Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-14492-6 – via Open Library.
• "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved May 28, 2023.
• Dunbar, Erica Armstrong (2019). She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman (Kindle ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-982139-66-7.
• Humez, Jean M. (Summer 1993). "In Search of Harriet Tubman's Spiritual Autobiography". NWSA Journal. 5 (2): 162–182. JSTOR 4316258.
• Humez, Jean (2003). Harriet Tubman: The Life and Life Stories. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-19120-7 – via Open Library.
• Larson, Kate Clifford (2004). Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-45627-4 – via Open Library.
• Larson, Kate Clifford (2022). Harriet Tubman: A Reference Guide to Her Life and Works. Significant Figures in World History series (Kindle ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-1357-8.
• Oertel, Kristen T. (2015). Harriet Tubman: Slavery, the Civil War, and Civil Rights in the Nineteenth-century America. Routledge Historical Americans series. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-94897-9.
• Sernett, Milton C. (2007). Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History. Durham and London: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4073-7.
• Walters, Kerry (2020). Harriet Tubman: A Life in American History. Black History Lives series (Kindle ed.). Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-5569-6.

External links

Category:1869 non-fiction books Category:Biographies about African-American people Category:Cultural depictions of Harriet Tubman