William Still: The Underground Railroad and the Angel at Philadelphia

About this book

The first full-length biography of William Still one of the most important leaders of the Underground Railroad. William Still: The Underground Railroad and the Angel at Philadelphia is the first major biography of the free Black abolitionist William Still who coordinated the Eastern Line of the Underground Railroad and was a pillar of the Railroad as a whole. Based in Philadelphia Still built a reputation as a courageous leader writer philanthropist and guide for fugitive enslaved people. This monumental work details Stills life story beginning with his parents escape from bondage in the early nineteenth century and continuing through his youth and adulthood as one of the nations most important Underground Railroad agents and later as an early civil rights pioneer. Still worked personally with Harriet Tubman assisted the family of John Brown helped Browns associates escape from Harpers Ferry after their famous raid and was a rival to Frederick Douglass among nationally prominent African American abolitionists. Stills life story is told in the broader context of the anti-slavery movement Philadelphia Quaker and free black history and the generational conflict that occurred between Still and a younger group of free black activists led by Octavius Catto. Unique to this book is an accessible and detailed database of the 995 fugitives Still helped escape from the South to the North and Canada between 1853 and 1861. The database contains twenty different fieldsincluding name age gender skin color date of escape place of origin mode of transportation and literacyand serves as a valuable aid for scholars by offering the opportunity to find new information and therefore a new perspective on runaway enslaved people who escaped on the Eastern Line of the Underground Railroad. Based on Stills own writings and a multivariate statistical analysis of the database of the runaways he assisted on their escape to freedom the book challenges previously accepted interpretations of the Underground Railroad. The audience for William Still is a diverse one including scholars and general readers interested in the history of the anti-slavery movement and the operation of the Underground Railroad as well as genealogists tracing African American ancestors.