On the Trail of the Underground Railroad An NEH Landmarks Grant

James A. Percoco

On a misty late July morning last summer, fifty K-12 history educators gathered near an obscure blue and yellow Commonwealth of Pennsylvania historical marker alongside a rural farm road. Over 150 years earlier, on the morning of September 11, 1851, Edward Gorsuch, his son Dickinson, and their posse of slave catchers approached the home of William Parker, a runaway slave, who lived in southern Pennsylvania. It was not Parker the men were after, but rather four slaves that had belonged to Gorsuch. They had escaped two years earlier from his Bel Air, Maryland, plantation, Retreat Farm. Tipped off about the whereabouts of his “property,” Gorsuch traveled first to Philadelphia, where he secured a federal warrant, and then to Lancaster County, to reclaim what was legally his.

A group of educators listened intently to local historian Bud Rettew as he recounted this story. He gestured to the field where Parker’s residence once stood, where the elder Gorsuch was killed, and where his son was seriously wounded. This site of what became know as the Christiana Riot has recently been resurrected by a new generation of antebellum historians who continue to investigate the history of resistance and the Underground Railroad. That is why educators from across the country traveled to this remote corner of Pennsylvania to learn the new scholarship about the Underground Railroad and how best to make that scholarship available to their students.

Like many National Endowment for the Humanities Landmark Grants, this weeklong experience under the leadership of Matthew Pinsker, professor of history at Dickinson College, endeavors to reveal lesser known but equally important stories of American history by imbedding teachers in historical sites and immersing them in the primary sources. The contingent of K-12 teachers, librarians, and administrators would also visit the small village of Christiana where an unusual obelisk commemorates the Christiana Riot in an ambiguous manner. “Edward Gorsuch: He died for law” is etched on one side while another side praises the men who stood up to that law. This site of American public memory raises serious questions rather than offers definitive answers. For some historians, the road to the Civil War began here. For many other historians, Harpers Ferry provided the spark that initiated the Civil War, and participants visited there two days later to witness the National Park Service’s interpretation of John Brown’s 1859 raid. Seeing where history happened makes a difference, and teachers indicated as much after their visits. “The field trips gave ‘life’ to the time and events of the subject,” reported one participant.”

“We want to help situate the story of the Underground Railroad in the story of the coming Civil War,” says Pinsker. “Most state standards and many teachers focus too heavily on the territorial crisis in Kansas and elsewhere as the great contributing factor to the war. There was an equally important fugitive crisis in the 1850s that played out across the borderlands and into the Northeast. We travel to places like Christiana and Harpers Ferry to help frame this part of the story and to show how sporadic violence over fugitive slaves contributed to the ultimate outbreak of massive violence in the Civil War.” But there’s a secondary agenda for Pinsker and his team of historians, museum specialists, and master classroom teachers seeking to find a new definition of the Railroad. “A primary goal of the workshop,” according to Pinsker, “is to help empower teachers to see all the possibilities for using hard evidence, actual places, and real people to document the history of the Underground Railroad. There’s been some fantastic work done on this subject over the last decade, and we tried our best to expose teachers to as much of it as possible.”

During the course of the five days of study, participants engaged in meaningful conversation with each other and with historians of the Underground Railroad. Fergus Bordewich, whose book Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America, one of the required texts, which argues that the Underground Railroad was really the first true civil rights movement in American history, participated in the discussions. Participants also listened to historian Catherine Clinton, author of Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, which offers a new appraisal of arguably the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. Participants enjoyed the readings and stated that they not only “added to our background knowledge of the subject,” but they also suggested new ways of exploring the history of individuals, something students appreciate.

Armed with a cornucopia of online and print primary resources, the participants left better prepared and more energized to develop new and thoughtful lesson plans based on their experiences. As an extension of their experience, these teachers and others can now access the Underground Railroad Resource Center, an online collection of primary source materials. “The Resource Center,” according to Pinsker, “aims to expand the dialogue which we began over the summer in order to reach a wider community. Not everybody can attend NEH workshops, but almost anyone can gain easy access to the Internet.” To access the Resource Center see <http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/ugrr>.

This past July, Pinsker and his team assembled again, once more leading their enthusiasts on the trail of the Underground Railroad.  The 2006 and 2007 programs were very successful in opening new avenues of scholarship in a topic that intrigues many teachers. 

James A. Percoco teaches at West Springfield (VA) High School and is History Educator-in-Residence at American University. He was a Master Classroom Teacher for the NEH Landmarks of the Underground Railroad project and is an advisory board member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.