From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad | 
| Authors: Jacqueline L. Tobin, Hettie Jones
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 350447
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 038551431X
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.7115
EAN: 9780385514316
ASIN: 038551431X
Publication Date: January 16, 2007
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Condition: EX-LIBRARY; used item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned for refund.
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Product Description
This extraordinary narrative offers a fresh perspective on the Underground Railroad as it traces the perilous journeys of fugitive ex–slaves from the United States to free black settlements in Canada.
The Underground Railroad was the passage to freedom for many slaves, but it was rife with dangers. There were dedicated conductors and safe houses, but also arduous nights in the mountains and days in threatening towns. For those who made it to Midnight (the code name given to Detroit), the Detroit River became a River Jordan—and Canada became their land of Canaan, the Promised Land where they could live freely in black settlements under the protection of British law. One of these settlements was known as Dawn.
In prose rich in detail and imagery, From Midnight to Dawn presents compelling portraits of the men and women who established the Railroad, and of the people who traveled it to find new lives in Canada. Some of the figures are well known, like Harriet Tubman and John Brown. But there are equally heroic, less familiar figures here as well, like Mary Ann Shadd, who became the first black female newspaper editor in North America, and Osborne Perry Anderson, the only black survivor of the fighting at Harpers Ferry.
From Midnight to Dawn evokes the turmoil and controversies of the time, reveals the compelling stories behindevents such as Harpers Ferryand theChristian Resistance, and introduces the reader to the real–life “Uncle Tom” who influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
An extraordinary examination of a part of American history that transcends national borders, From Midnight to Dawn will captivate readers with its tales of hope, courage, and a people’s determination to live equal under the law.
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Well-researched, well-written account of important history March 18, 2008
Few people pursue the research level of Jacqueline L. Tobin in traveling, reading old papers, sifting through letters, discovering ancient pamphlets, and interviewing descendents. The information in From Midnight to Dawn is inestimable, and Tobin's description of the black journey from Midnight, Detroit's nickname, to the black Ontario settlement of Dawn is gripping.
Few Americans realize that the Underground Railroad's terminus was in Canada. Many believe it ran from the Deep South to Ohio and dispersed into thin air, leaving Uncle Tom's Cabin behind in Kentucky.
Tobin traces the lives of ex-slaves up though Cincinnati and the intolerable Black Laws, though the Fugitive Slave Act, up the Toledo-Cincinnati Canal, across Lake Erie, and into nearly the whole of Ontario Province. There, Uncle Tom's Cabin is made material in the home of freedman Josiah Henson, beaten so badly as a young slave that he could never raise his hands head high again. He and his family were welcomed to Canada and received by Queen Victoria at the 1851 London World's Fair. He was forced to display his abolitionist materials at the American table, but erected a sign stating he had fled to Canada in order to survive. The sign drew Victoria's attention and everyone else's eye and support. Henson lived to be a respected political activist and public speaker until his death at age 94.
Tobin's blacks are not caricatures, but people like our present neighbors and leaders that thought and spoke intelligently, even if they had not yet learned to read. Henson himself wrote an autobiography that Harriet Beecher Stowe consulted when writing Uncle Tom's Cabin. Abolitionist John Brown is discussed in detail, but so is Harper's Ferry and its sole survivor, a brave black man. Female black news editor Mary Shadd also is portrayed in depth.
Such material is not presented in classrooms. However, Tobin presents dozens of such chronicles expertly, with photos and maps created by the author.
All Americans, ages 12 - adult should read Midnight to Dawn and discover the real abusiveness of slavery and discrimination.
Armchair Interviews agrees.
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