Fact or Fiction

1
Fact or Fiction?

• Lies, Mysteries and Untruths on the Underground
  Railroad

2
Fakelore

• Why are there so many legends surrounding the
  Underground Railroad?
• Aging informants
• Passage of time
• Ancestral pride
• Community pride
• Repetition
• Distortion, embellishment and exaggeration

3
Say What?!
One persons idea of the use or meaning of a
primary source doesnt make it fact!
You need to back up your claim with multiple
sources!
4
Primary Source Activity

• Each group will get one primary source and a
  corresponding description
• How would you determine if the description is
  fact or fiction?
• We care about the PROCESS
• What other types of primary sources would you try
  to find to support or refute the claim? Why
  those?
• Present your ideas to the group

5
Example
This blue Atlas canning jar was manufactured
between 1930 and 1960. It was manufactured by the
Hazel-Atlas Glass Corporation, which was
established after the merger of the Hazel
Company, the Atlas Glass Company, Republic Glass
and the Wheeling Metal Company in 1902.
Fact!

• Catalogs
• Glass, rubber and metal technology
• Newspapers
• Business records
• Anniversary brochures

6
Things to keep in Mind

• Technology
• When did the technology exist to create this?
• Chronology
• Does the date match up with the claim?
• Bias
• Did/does the creator belong to an organization
  that would be pro or con the subject the person
  is writing about?
• What do they have to gain?
• Common sense
• Sometimes it just doesnt make sense!

7
Fact or Fiction?
This slave coin, minted in 1838, was used as
payment on the Underground Railroad. A slave
would give this coin to a conductor on the
Underground Railroad, and if the conductor
accepted the coin it meant the slave could enter
their home and take shelter for the night.
FICTION!
8
FACT!

• The image of the female slave in chains
  surrounded by this motto was used by female
  antislavery societies in printed pamphlets, on
  letterhead and on needlework sold at antislavery
  fairs. The emblem served as a visual reminder of
  the humanity of the slave.
• This coin, made of copper, may have been
  exchanged among members of antislavery groups
  much the same way as we might use political
  buttons today.

9
Fact or Fiction?
Fact??
These shackles were used to bind slaves and keep
them from escaping. The shackles were attached
to the slaves legs.
10
FACT!

• These shackles may have been used for slaves, but
  could also have been used for prisoners.
• The exact use is currently unknown
• How would you try to find out??

11
Fact or Fiction?
This house in Dayton, Ohio, was a stop on the
Underground Railroad. Fugitive slaves would
enter through a door in the back of the house and
hide in the attic.
FICTION!
12
FACT!

• This photograph shows the final home of poet Paul
  Laurence Dunbar at 219 Paul Laurence Dunbar
  Street in Dayton, Ohio,
• The home was built around 1887 and is an example
  of Queen Anne style, which was popular in the
  United States from 1880 to 1910.

13
Fact or Fiction?
This photograph shows a group of abolitionists.
These twenty men were arrested for attempting to
free an alleged slave from his captors.
Fact!
14
Fact or Fiction?
Quilts contained codes to help slaves on their
journey. This quilt is done in the log cabin
pattern. Hung on a clothesline or across the
front porch, this pattern told slaves that this
was a safe house or that they needed to take
shelter.
FICTION!
15
FACT!

• Even among Code proponents, the patterns
  meanings, how the quilts were used, and who used
  them is a matter of debate. Some proponents claim
  the Code as part of their family oral history,
  but none can point to an ancestor who used it to
  escape to the North or even participated in the
  Underground Railroad.
• First-hand accounts of fugitive slaves and
  Underground Railroad participants detail many
  ways of conveying messages but never mention
  using quilts, and the details of the Code are
  incompatible with documented evidence of the
  Underground Railroad, slave living
  conditions, quilt making, and African culture. 
• The Code materialized in the 1980s during the
  post-Bicentennial revival of folk art and the
  popularization of womens history studies.

16
Fact or Fiction?
Fact??
This map shows the Underground Railroad routes
through Ohio that fugitive slaves traveled.
17
FACT!

• This map was created by Wilbur Siebert and used
  in his book The Mysteries of the Underground
  Railroad in Ohio, published in 1951, and based on
  research he collected from individuals and
  communities claiming they had URR sites.
• He strung together his research to create the
  trails connecting various cities.

18
Fact or Fiction?
FICTION!
This poster is advertising a reward for finding a
lost woman named Emily. She has gone missing and
her family is looking for her.
19
FACT!

• This broadside is announcing a reward for the
  apprehension and return of a runaway slave named
  Emily who belonged to Thomas H. Williams from
  near Lewisburg, Mason County, Kentucky.

20
Fact or Fiction?
Fact!
This photograph shows the John Rankin house.
Rankin was a Presbyterian minister and educator
who devoted much of his life to the antislavery
movement. His house has several secret rooms in
which fugitive slaves were hidden.
21
Wrap-Up

• If you had a primary source you wanted to
  validate, where would you start?
• What would be the best primary source to validate
  other primary sources?
• What would be the best secondary source to
  validate a primary source?