Juvenile Literature: Biography
Juvenile Literature: Historical Fiction
Juvenile Literature: History
Young Adult Literature: Biography
Young Adult Literature: Historical Fiction
Videos
External Links
Online Lesson Plans

Juvenile Literature: Biography

Freedom River
By Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Bryan Collier. "John Parker was a successful business person and one of Ripley (Ohio's) most active conductors on the Underground Railroad. He had been born a slave and earned eno~gh money to buy his freedom. But he never forgot the pain of being taken from his mother's loving arms when he was eight years old." Historians believe John Parker may have helped as many as 900 African Americans across the Ohio River. The book narrates the story of one family's escape. 28 pages.

Author's note about courage; illustrator's note about the power of prayer, and the importance of people who are "protectors".

Lesson plans for use with Freedom River available online:
www.nku.edu/-undergroundrr/URR4.doc
www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/35.4/dallmer.html
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A Picture Book of Frederick Douglass
By David A. Adler, illustrated by Samuel Byrd.

This book tells the story of Frederick Douglass who escaped from slavery in 1838. Douglass became one of the most powerful spokesmen for the abolition of slavery. He was the editor of The North Star, an abolitionist paper in Rochester, New York, and he wrote a personal memoir, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick, Douglass, An American Slave, which was published in 1845. 32 pages.
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Juvenile Literature: Historical Fiction

Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky
By Faith Ringgold
Dragonfly Books
Crown Publishers, Inc.
New York, 1992

In a dreamlike sequence with Harriet Tubman guiding her on her journey, Cassie retraces the steps escaping slaves took on the Underground Railroad. Cassie learns to listen for the sound of Harriet's voice singing the song "Go Down, Moses." A farmer and his wife shelter her in their farmhouse by a river and later she travels through the swamp at night. She learns about secret code quilts. In New York, she is hidden in a secret compartment in a bookbinder's wagon, and later she is hidden in a crowd marching in a funeral procession. Cassie flies over the waters of Niagara Falls. On the other side of the river she is reunited with her brother BeBe, and she meets a new baby in her family who has been born in freedom.

32 pages
Lesson plans for use with Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky are available online: http://www.eduplace.com/tview/pages/a/Aunt_Harriet_s_Underground_Railroad_in_the_Sky _Faith_Ringgold.html
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Follow the Drinking Gourd
Written and illustrated by Jeanette Winter
Alfred A. Knopf
New York. 1992

This book teaches the story behind the African American folksong, Follow the Drinking Gourd, which was a code song written to help enslaved persons to find their way to freedom in the North. It tells the story of one family's journey to freedom, following the words in the song.

32 pages
Lesson plans for use with Follow the Drinking Gourd are available online:
http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/planetarium/ftdgl.htm
http://songsforteaching.homestead.com/Newlinl.html
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Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
By Deborah Hopkinson, paintings by James Ransome
Alfred A. Knopf
New York. 1993

With the help of her "aunt" Rachel, Clara becomes a seamstress in the big house. Listening to field hands in the kitchen, Clara has the idea of making a quilt that can' work like a map, to show the way north to freedom. When her friend Young Jack attempts to escape and fails, Clara's realizes how important a quilt map could be. Piece by piece, over a long time, out of stories told by many different people, she assembles a quilt that shows the way. There is a square for the North Star, and a square for the big house, and the slave's quarters, and the fields and the swamp. There are rivers. There is a boat. One night, in the middle of a stonn, Clara lays the quilt over her Aunt Rachel, and she and Jack leave the plantation for good. She knows the way by heart.

32 pages
Lesson plans are available online for use with Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt. http://askeric.org/Virtual/Lessons/Interdisciplinary/INTO120.html
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/sweet/sweettg.html
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Under the Quilt of Night
By Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by James E. Ransome
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
New York: 2001

This book by the author and illustrator of Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt narrates the journey north of those who chose to run to escape slavery on the Underground Railroad. It includes many historically realistic details.

32 pages
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Juvenile Literature: History

Life on the Underground Railroad
By Stuart A. Kallen. Lucent Books
San Diego, 2000

Part of "The Way People Live," Series, this book, suitable for older juvenile and young adult readers, is especially notable for extended quotations of principle figures in the Underground Railroad, and for a wealth of historical detail that is not repeated in other books. Unusual in books on this topic: a chapter entitled "Lives of the Trackers."

96 pages
Includes an index, a bibliography, and many photographs
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The Underground Railroad
By R. Conrad Stein. Cornerstones of Freedom Series
Children's Press, Division of Grolier
New York. 1997

This book describes the operation, stations and conductors of the Underground Railroad, a network that helped enslaved persons escape from bondage prior to the Civil War in the U.S. Historical figures covered in the book include: Harriet Tubman, Eli Whitney, Nat Turner, Dred Scott, Levi Coffin, Thomas Garrett, Lyman Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jermain Loguen, William Still, Frederick Douglass, Henry "Box" Brown, John Fairfield, Abraham Lincoln.

32 pages
Historical photographs and etchings, maps, paintings, a glossary, a timeline and index.
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The Underground Railroad in American History
By Kem Knapp Sawyer. Enslow Publishers, Inc
Berkley Heights, NJ, 1997

This is a well researched and well written history of the Underground Railroad appropriate for older juvenile and young adult readers. It is unique for its coverage of the role of Lake Erie steamship captains of both races in the transportation of fugitives to Canada, as well as for an extended treatment of the life of Quaker Levi Coffin. Chapters, including The Escape, Living in Slavery, The Flight, The Fugitives, Famous Conductors, On Trial, and The Promised Land, explore the Underground Railroad experience from multiple perspectives.

128 pages
Includes footnotes, bibliography, index and many photographs chosen to complement the text.
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Welcome to Addy 's World 1864: Growing up During America 's Civil War
By Susan Sinnott, design by Mengwan Lin and Jane S. Varda
Pleasant Company Publications/ The American Girls Collection
Middleton, Wisconsin, 1999

This is a very colorful, appealing presentation of s.ocial history, including the history of southern agriculture, slavery, freedom and the Civil War. Stories about historical events and people are interwoven with the fictional story of Addy, a young girl who with her mother escapes from a plantation in 1864 and settles in Philadelphia. Many pages feature historical photographs, as well as photographs of period clothing, toys, tools and other cultural artifacts of mid-19th century America.
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North Star to Freedom: The Story of the Underground Railroad
By Gena Gorrell
Delacorte Press
New York, 1997

Although this book is fashioned as the story of the Underground Railroad, it actually covers the history of slavery in the western hemisphere from the beginning of the African slave trade in the 1500s through the American Civil War. The author is a Canadian Quaker. The value of her perspective is shown in her ability to explain the religious roots of the abolitionist movement, and her ability to view clearly from a distance the impact of slavery on the emotional lives of victims and oppressors, as well as the larger communities and the nation in which they lived. The topic of each chapter is skillfully focused, and the meaning of events is revealed through the stories of individual persons.

167 pages
Many historical photographs, etchings, maps, billboards and broadsides, usually with extended captions.
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Young Adult Literature: Biography

Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave
By Virginia Hamilton
Knopf
New York, 1988

Anthony Bums escaped to Boston in 1854, and was arrested at the instigation of his owner. His trial caused a furor between abolitionists and those determined to enforce the fugitive slave acts. The list of characters at the beginning of the book (pages ix-xiii) includes P. T. Barnum, owner of Ringling Brother's Circus, Franklin Pierce, 14th president of the U.S., and the Rev. Theodore Parker, abolitionist minister of the 28th Congregational Society, Tremont Temple. Anthony Burns' childhood is artfully fictionalized to lead up to the parts of the story that are based on history.

194 pages
Includes a bibliography and an index.
Lesson plans for Anthony Burns available on line:
www.harrietbeecherstowe.org/programs/gibson.doc.
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"Dear Friend: Thomas Garrett and William Still, Collaborators on the Underground Railroad
By Judith Bentley Cobblehill Books/ Dutton
New York, 1997

From 1855 until 1861 African American William Still of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Quaker Thomas Garrett of Wilmington, Delaware, worked together to orchestrate the escapes of more than 1000 enslaved persons across the Mason-Dixon line separating their two states. Harriet Tubman was a conductor on their line. This book tells the story of each man's life, and chronicles their years of cooperation. It is based largely on correspondence and journals maintained by William Still. Thomas Garrett destroyed most of the letters he received from William Still because to keep them would have endangered the lives of many people.

119 pages
Historical photographs, and etchings, photographs of letters, a list of historical sources and an index. Includes a discussion of the spiritual roots of Quaker abolitionism.
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Frederick Douglass and the Fight for Freedom
By Douglas T. Miller
Facts on File Publications/ Makers of America
New York, 1988

This is an insightful treatment of a remarkable life. Frederick Douglass' childhood, his escape from slavery and rapid rise to prominence in the abolitionist movement, his. support for the women's suffragist movement, and his relationship with Abraham Lincoln are all covered in this book, which provides excellent material for a nuanced discussion of personal achievement and the complexities of race in human relationships.

152 pages
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Young Adult Literature: Historical Fiction

Cezanne Pinto
By Mary Stolz Alfred A. Knopf
New York, 1994

On the night before she is to be sold to another owner, Deucy's mother gives him the name of Cezanne Pinto. She names him Cezanne, after the eldest child of Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sauble, whose mother was enslaved in Haiti, and who grew up to found the city of Chicago. He chooses the name Pinto because of his love of horses. The book tells the story of Cezanne's escape from a Virginia plantation, using a copy of a map drawn by Harriet Tubman, and of his journey North to freedom in Canada. The journey includes a stay at a Quaker safe house, the assistance of William Still in Philadelphia, and a ferry trip across Lake Erie to Ontario. Later, Cezanne returns to th~ U.S. to join the Union army. After the war he travels to Texas in search of his mother, whom he never finds. The story is told from the perspective of a ninety year old man looking back on a long and amazing life.

279 pages
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The House of Dies Drear
By Virginia Hamilton
Aladdin Paperbacks/ Simon & Schuster
New York, 1996

From book jacket: "A hundred years ago, Diesprear and two slaves he was hiding in his house, an Underground Railroad station in Ohio, had been murdered. The house, huge and isolated, was fascinating, Thomas thought, but he wasn't sure he was glad Papa had bought it-funny things kept happening, frightening things..."

Also available on five audio cassettes through Recorded Books. 1995.
Lesson plans available online for use with this book:
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/pdf/house_of_dies_drear.pdf
http://www.mcdougalllittel.com/disciplines/_lang_arts/litcons/houseof/guide.cfm
http://www.teacherhelp.com/your_classroom/lesson_plans/lessonpln5.html
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Over Jordan
By Nonna Johnston
Avon Books, Inc.
New York, 1999

This 1830s story is set at Grey's Landing, a safe house on the Indiana shore of the Ohio River, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in New York State. Fourteen year old Roxana's mother and brother were killed in a riverboat accident two years earlier. When her father, who is a judge, is called away on important business, a crisis at home requires a daring plan. Roxana, impersonating a haughty slave owner, transports Joss, her cherished servant, and Joss's fiance, who is a runaway slave, on a dangerous journey up the Ohio River to.safety in the north.

Historical figures: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher.
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Underground Man
By Milton Meltzer Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
New York, 1990

This historical novel is based on the life of Calvin Fairbank, a Methodist minister and abolitionist who conducted numerous rescue missions to bring slaves across the Ohio River from Kentucky, and who served two separate sentences in Kentucky, totaling 17 years, for slave stealing.

Historical figures: Levi Coffin.
In the book's Afterward: On History and Fiction, the author provides a detailed explanation of how his story is supported by research, and built around numerous actual incidents. From the afterward:

"At the time 1 began the book there were in print several biographies for young people of black abolitionists-people like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth. There were very few about white abolitionists, however. .. and none at all about white abolitionists, such as Calvin Fairbank, who dared go into the South to rescue slaves." "I find a kind of parallel between telling stories such as Fairbank's and telling the story of the very small minority of Christians who risked their lives to rescue Jews during the Nazi era... those few, like Calvin Fairbank or my fictional hero, Josh Bowen, were men and women whose lives were witness to the truth that there is an alternative to the passive acceptance of evil."
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Videos

Follow the Drinking Gourd: The Story of the Underground Railroad
Narrated by Morgan Freeman
Rabbit Ears Productions, Inc., American Heroes and Legends

This video is based on Yvonne Buchanan's illustrations for the Jeanette Winter book, Follow the Drinking Gourd. The story is based on the traditional African American folksong, which was in reality a code song that helped fugitive slaves fmd their way to the North and to freedom. The meaning of the song is unfolded through the story of Peg Leg Joe and one family's escape.

30 minutes
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Underground Railroad
Hosted by Alfre Woodard
A&E Home Video, The History Channel

Although it connects the story of the Underground Railroad with every enslaved person who ever struck out for freedom on the North American continent starting in the 1600s, this video focuses on the loosely organized network of runaway slaves, freed blacks and anti-slavery whites who composed the Abolitionist movement of the mid-nineteenth century. The following historical figures are discussed: William Still, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alexander Campbell, the Rev. John Rankin, John P. Parker, Anthony Burns, Dred Scott, John Price, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman.

100 minutes.
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External Links

Boston African American National Historic Site
Part of the National Park Service website, these pages feature brief biographies of Anthony Burns, Ellen and William Craft, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, and other figures in the Abolitionist movement.
http://www.nps.gov/boaf/biogra~l.htm

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad
This web site was created by Mrs. Taverna's second grade class in Sleepy Hollow, New York, in 1998. It has been updated every year. The site includes many interesting links, and also an invitation to correspond with Mrs. Taverna's students about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/tubman/tubman.html

I Got Away: the Story of an Escaped Slave
This is a webquest, with study questions, for 4th to 6th grade social studies classes.
http://www.atschool.org/groups/newteachers4/portfolios/tlee.htm

Levi Coffin: President of the Underground Railroad
This is a biography of Levi Coffin on the website for the Indiana Historical Society.
http://www.indianahistory.org/heritage/levic.html

National Geographic Online Presents The Underground Railroad
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
This web site contains the complete text in a very accessible fonnat for use in the classroom.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography

What Was the Underground Railroad?
This is another teacher's website, for high school students. It contains an excellent bibliography, as well as links to many of the best internet sites for learning about the Underground Railroad.
http://www.kathimitchell.com/undrr.html

William Still Underground Railroad Foundation
http://www.undergroundrr.com/

Upstate Institute
Underground Railroad: A library research guide with web resources
http://exlibris.colgate.edu/staff/ehutton/underground_railroad.html#Selected%20Web%20Resources

Northern Kentucky University Institute for Freedom Studies
The purpose of the Northern Kentucky University Institute for Freedom Studies is to promote interdisciplinary research, teaching, and community outreach grounded in the study of the Underground Railroad movement in the Middle Ohio River Valley. From this basis in the study of the historical resistance to slavery, the NKU Institute for Freedom Studies fosters multicultural education as part of the never-ending struggle for human freedom and a fully democratic American society.
http://www.nku.edu/%7Efreedom/

The Avalon Project
Statement of Purpose and Document Inclusion Policy - The Avalon Project will mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. We do not intend to mount only static text but rather to add value to the text by linking to supporting documents expressly referred to in the body of the text.

The Avalon Project will no doubt contain controversial documents. Their inclusion does not indicate endorsement of their contents nor sympathy with the ideology, doctrines, or means employed by their authors. They are included for the sake of completeness and balance and because in many cases they are by our definition a supporting document.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp

Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture: A Digital Archive
Site for resources on Uncle Tom’s Cabin and slavery
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/

UGRR Research Institute
Welcome to the official website of the Underground Railroad Research Institute at Georgetown College.
http://ugrri.georgetowncollege.edu/

The Circle Association's African American History Of Western New York
We present an ongoing project to study the historical presence of Blacks in Buffalo, Rochester, Jamestown, Syracuse, Geneva, Ithaca, Corning, Niagara Falls, Canandaigua, Fredonia, and, in general, western New York State from 1700 to 2000.
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/%7Esww/0history/UndergroundRailRoad.html

Friends Historical Library
Established in 1871, Friends Historical Library is located on the campus of Swarthmore College in suburban Philadelphia and is open to the public. Its mission is to document the history of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and its concerns from the 17th century to the present.
http://www.swarthmore.edu/x7541.xml

Documenting the American South
Documenting the American South (DocSouth), a digital publishing initiative sponsored by the University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It supplies teachers, students, and researchers at every educational level with a wide array of titles they can use for reference, studying, teaching, and research.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/coffin/coffin.html

K-12

Ohio History Teachers
Lesson plans, links, content standards, etc.
http://www.ohiohistoryteachers.org/

Organizations
The Friends of Freedom Society, Inc. - Ohio Underground Railroad Association
http://www.ohioundergroundrailroad.org/

The Center for Anti-Slavery Studies
http://www.antislaverystudies.org/resources/online.html

Tours

Aboard the Underground Railroad: A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/underground/

Sites

Buxton National Historic Site & Museum
http://www.buxtonmuseum.com/home/hm-background.html

Museums

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
http://www.freedomcenter.org/

Buxton National Historic Site & Museum
http://www.buxtonmuseum.com/home/hm-background.html

Research Resources

Documenting the American South
http://docsouth.unc.edu/

Virginia Runaways Digital Project
http://people.uvawise.edu/runaways/

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia
http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/gos/

Accessible Archives
http://www.accessible.com/accessible/

Publications

Underground Railroad Free Press
http://urrfreepress.com/

Model Sites

The Center for Anti-Slavery Studies
http://www.antislaverystudies.org/resources/online.html

The California Underground Railroad
http://digital.lib.csus.edu/curr/
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Online Lesson Plans

All Aboard: The Underground Railroad
Five part lesson plan for the 4th grade is based on the books Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt and Follow the Drinking Gourd. It also includes an internet based activity.
http://thesolutionsite.com/lpnew/lesson/2008/1esson1.html

Exploring the Underground Railroad
This Internet Field Trip, published online at Scholastic. com, includes links to websites that have been evaluated and selected by teachers and educators. Can be used as a lesson planning tool, or in an information literacy activity for students.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/fieldtrp/socstu/explore.htm

Slave Quilts and the Underground Railroad
An AskERIC Lesson Plan for grades 4, 5 and 6, based on the book Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt. Includes five 45-minute sessions.
http://askeric.org/Virtual/Lessons/Interdisciplinary/INTO120.html

Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
Five-part lesson plan for third graders includes multiple links to other educational websites.
http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/sweet/sweettg.html

The Underground Railroad
Includes a worksheet for use with the National Geographic Underground Railroad website. Includes a link to cross-curricular activities.
http://www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-4166.html
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