The New York Times Book Review - Kevin Baker
Foner…one of our leading historians…does a superb job of focusing the story of the Underground Railroad on a human level. He makes vivid the incredible risks and hardships so many slaves were willing to endure for their freedom, and how much it meant to them…Foner also performs an invaluable service in restoring the record of liberated blacks who helped their fellow African-Americans to freedom. Here are, among many others, not only the legendary Harriet Tubman—who more than lives up to the legend—but also Louis Napoleon, an illiterate porter and window washer who "was credited with having helped over 3,000 fugitives escape from bondage"; the indefatigable David Ruggles, a freeborn black man who specialized in plucking slaves off ships in New York Harbor; and the anonymous crowds of free blacks, men and women, who rushed again and again to rescue fugitive slaves in violent street battles.
Publishers Weekly - Audio
03/23/2015
Acclaimed narrator Jackson delivers a competent, though not always inspired, performance of Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Foner’s sweeping narrative on the inner workings of the Underground Railroad. Jackson is most passionate for the individual accounts of those involved in the secret network, which was created to help slaves find their freedom. Yet for the most part, the material centers on the political, social, and racial divides within the abolition movement itself, as radicals and moderates struggled with one another to stake a claim for leadership in the struggle to free black Americans from bondage. Jackson’s tone subtly illuminates the dynamic of the various players, particularly when conveying the stance of white leaders in the mainstream political process, contrasted with the voices of the more revolutionary participants. Listeners with an academic bent and already steeped in the history of the era will feel engaged, but a more general audience seeking to make initial connections with American abolitionism may need to look elsewhere. A Norton hardcover. (Jan.)
Publishers Weekly
11/03/2014
The Underground Railroad is at once one of the best known and least understood aspects in the history of American slavery, but Pulitzer Prize–winner Foner (The Fiery Trial) makes expert use of an unusual primary source to illuminate the workings of this secret system. He focuses on the antebellum accounts of Sydney Howard Gay, a Manhattan newspaper editor, abolitionist sympathizer, and Underground Railroad participant, whose “record of fugitives” sheds light on the experiences of more than 200 enslaved men and women who passed through New York City. The accounts also offer fascinating glimpses of the lives of individual fugitive slaves, including Simon Hill, who walked from southern Virginia to Philadelphia, and Winnie Patsy, who with her young daughter spent five months hiding in a dark, unventilated crawl space outside Norfolk, Va. Foner shows how Gay’s network functioned on a practical level, helping fugitives to move from one safe space to another along the East Coast—often to Canada—and he emphasizes the crucial role played by African-Americans themselves, from dockworkers to clergymen, in helping fugitives to freedom. The Underground Railroad is much mythologized but not widely understood; Foner’s gripping account of slaves’ struggles to free themselves reveals the immense risks they, and their sympathizers, took to escape bondage. Agent: Sandra Dijkstra, Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. (Jan.)
Alan Taylor
"With remarkable new research and keen insight, Eric Foner vividly narrates stories of courage and resourcefulness by the men and women who helped antebellum slaves escape to freedom. Foner deftly illuminates the importance of the underground railroad in provoking southern leaders into issuing ultimatums that would culminate in civil war."
James Oakes
"Gateway to Freedom liberates the history of the underground railroad from the twin plagues of mythology and cynicism. The big picture is here, along with telling details from previously untapped sources. With lucid prose and careful analysis, Eric Foner tells a story that is at once unsparing and inspiring. For anyone who still wonders what was at stake in the Civil War, there is no better place to begin than Gateway to Freedom."
New York Post - Billy Heller
"A terrific and powerful story."
Philadelphia Inquirer - Michael D. Schaffer
"Bring[s] to bear the insights of a long and distinguished career writing about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras and a sharp sense of the ironies that involuntary servitude posed for a nation that proclaimed itself to be built on principles of liberty… highly readable."
Newsweek - Alexander Nazaryan
"Compelling . . . by turns scholarly and gripping."
David W. Blight
"Once again, Eric Foner as scholar shakes American history and alters as he also rebuilds one of its foundations. Making brilliant use of an extraordinary, little-known document, Foner, with his customary clarity, tells the enlightening story of the thousands of fugitive slaves who journeyed to freedom along the eastern corridor of the United States. Many stories of individual courage illuminate a network of operatives both formal and informal that played a powerful role in causing sectional conflict and the Civil War."
Wall Street Journal - David S. Reynolds
"Excellent . . . Mr. Foner, bringing to bear his well-honed research skills and his deep knowledge of slavery and race relations . . . vividly describes the key part that New York City played in the operations of the Underground Railroad . . . he merits high praise for contributing sold information and thoughtful analysis to the history of this shadowy, extensive network."
O Magazine - Edward P. Jones
"Riveting… Foner creates a visceral chronicle of defiance and sacrifice."
San Francisco Chronicle - Bruce Watson
"[A] detailed narrative . . . infused with the spirit of freedom."
The Nation - Richard Kreitner
"Will continue to be read as long as Americans, perilously free, journey north."
Los Angeles Times - Wendy Smith
"Reminds us that history can be as stirring as the most gripping fiction."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Kevin Lynch
"[Foner] carries the reader along, as if galloping through a valley of subterfuge and salvation that might also doom freedom at any time. Foner crucially delineates the profound challenge and existential risk that engulfed an interracial generation as the nation thundered toward dissolution, or Civil War."
The Atlantic - Adam Goodheart
"Tells a story that will surprise most readers . . . Compelling."
The New York Times - Sam Roberts
"Mandatory, and riveting, reading."
Kevin Baker
"Illuminating…an invaluable addition to our history."
New York Times - Jennifer Schuessler
"Eric Foner has won a place in the front rank of American historians with books that seem to vacuum up all available sources to produce bold new interpretations of the country’s reckoning with the big questions of slavery and freedom."
Christian Science Monitor - David Hugh Smith
"Quite an accomplishment… this narrative is dramatic and compelling and certainly will provide readers with a deep understanding of the workings of the Underground Railroad."
Huffington Post - Jonah Raskin
"Suspense and drama on nearly every page. . . . The art of historical narrative at its very best."
Library Journal
★ 11/15/2014
Preeminent scholar Foner (DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia Univ.; The Fiery Trial; Reconstruction) adds to his impressive oeuvre with this fascinating study of the Underground Railroad. The author eschews the common approach of documenting the phenomenon from the South, instead centering his monograph on New York City. Through individuals such as abolitionist Sydney Howard Gay and minister Charles Ray, he demonstrates that ferrying escaped slaves from the city's waterfront to other locales throughout the North was fraught with extreme danger. This was especially true after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, when political and social elites in the city worked with their Southern counterparts to seize escaped slaves, and even free African Americans, in order to preserve their close economic ties. VERDICT This seminal work is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the United States from the beginning of the sectional conflict between the North and the South to the conclusion of the Civil War. Readers should also strongly consider Passages to Freedom, edited by David W. Blight. [See Prepub Alert, 7/21/14.]—John R. Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY
JANUARY 2015 - AudioFile
JD Jackson offers a solid, easy-on-the-ears narration of this reexamination of the Underground Railroad. Jackson takes an almost professorial-sounding approach in his tone and cadence. But he’s by no means pedantic. He varies both the pitch of his voice and the pacing to fit the material as well as adds emotion where appropriate. For direct quotes, he pauses just before he reads the quotation, giving the listener clear audible cues about the content. He wisely doesn't try to give speakers unique vocal characterizations as the quotations often are too short for such a technique to be effective. This book is more scholarly than action filled, and Jackson's reading makes it easy to follow. R.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2014-10-20
New sources reveal the perilous journeys of fugitive slaves.Prolific historian Foner (History/Columbia Univ.; The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, 2010, etc.), winner of the Pulitzer, Bancroft and Lincoln prizes, traces the convoluted trail known as the Underground Railroad in the roiling decades before the Civil War. Drawing on rich archival sources, including the papers of Sydney Howard Gay, a prominent New York abolitionist who scrupulously documented his cases, Foner uncovers the tireless, dangerous work of a handful of determined abolitionists and the quests of thousands of black men, women and children to achieve freedom. Slaves risked their lives to escape primarily due to physical violence, fear of being sold or broken promises of manumission. Many headed to Philadelphia, where Quakers and freed blacks hid them, gave them money and sent them on their way North. In Canada, Foner writes, they found "greater safety and more civil and political rights—including serving on juries, testifying in court, and voting—than what existed in most of the United States." Although a "pervasive antislavery atmosphere" prevailed in Syracuse, the atmosphere in New York City was far different. In the 18th century, slave auctions regularly had taken place at a Wall Street market, and ownership of slaves by New Yorkers was common. Even by the mid-19th century, New York was called " ‘a poor neglected city' when it came to abolitionism"; pro-Southern businessmen eagerly upheld fugitive slave laws, cooperating with slave owners intent on retrieving their human property. "You don't know, you can't…," wrote Gay to a Boston abolitionist, "just what my position is….You are surrounded by a people growing in anti-slavery; I by a people who hate it." Foner brings to life fraught decades of contention, brutality and amazing acts of moral courage.
