The Underground Railroad was the metaphorical name for the system of routes and safe houses that enslaved Black Americans used to escape slavery and find some modicum of safety in free states of the North and in Canada. I expected the book would primarily, but that was not the case. Instead it focused on the work of abolitionists, both free Black and white, who organized the Underground Railroad, as well as the work of Black people who emancipated themselves and then worked to help others. It focuses specifically on activity in New York City, so some of the most famous abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, are only mentioned tangentially where their stories intersect with the city. This history of the Underground Railroad is particularly focused on how abolitionism, antislavery, and freeing the enslaved was affected by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The book is an interesting prism on how many different people - often ordinary and uncelebrated - worked to help free thousands of people from the bonds of slavery from the 1830s to the 1860s. ( )

Erc Foner's book is less the comprehensive history of the Underground Railroad that its subtitle might suggest than a history of what he terms the "Metropolitan Corridor" -- the network that passed through or near New York City. This is because of the discovery which inspired the book: the "Record of Fugitives" kept by Sydney Howard Gay, an abolitionist journalist who in the 1850s helped assist hundreds of slaves escaping bondage. Yet this important source and the events it chronicles serve as just one part of the book, as Foner goes back further to describe the beginnings of the informal networks that arose in the 1830s to both aid fleeing bondsmen and to prevent the seizure by slave catchers of free blacks off of the streets of New York. Through his description of the people involved and the often dramatic events in which they were involved he illuminates the efforts of a group of Americans who undertook great efforts to make the promise of freedom real for thousands who were denied it by the color of their skin. It's a story that deserves to be told, and it's one that Foner tells well. ( )

A good but brief account of the origins of the Underground Railroad and when it was at its height before the American Civil War and its winding up shortly thereafter. Could've used more first hand accounts of runaway slaves. ( )

This book was an interesting look into the history of the Underground Railroad in New England. I specify because anything not connected directly to New York City is not mentioned--which makes sense, given the sources Foner was working with. He does a careful job of making sure not just to highlight white participants, and really did his work in trying to follow Black participants who may not have otherwise been highlighted. The story itself moves chronologically and also traces debates among abolitionist factions. I'm not personally super familiar with the historiography around the Underground Railroad, so I can't speak to the interventions (if any) Foner is making in this book--if anything, he relies super heavily on that historiography to make his argument. Which is fine, it's an interesting enough story on its own, but I don't know that I would have read it if it wasn't gifted to me, as much as I love Foner's other work. Really, I just don't feel one way or another about this book? It wasn't bad, it just wasn't great, which is totally cool! ( )

I found this a very interesting story. I learned a lot. Great as an audiobook. ( )