Harriet Tubman

Starred review from January 5, 2004
Clinton has an extraordinary knack of compressing complex history into an informing brief paragraph or a single sentence, making this "first full-scale biography" of Tubman (1825–1913) a revelation. To the task of illuminating the "difficult to document" life of the woman known as "Moses," Clinton brings her deep immersion in Southern history, women's history and African-American history. Succinctly, she sets the stage upon which Tubman moves, offering just enough biographical detail to give less well-known figures vitality (Mary Shadd Cary gets more space than Frederick Douglass; Union general David Hunter more than William Lloyd Garrison) and just enough historical detail to render Tubman's milieu meaningful (unfamiliar Canadian history gets more space than the familiar Fugitive Slave Acts). Although she often posed as an old woman, Tubman was in her 20s when she began her rescues, and in her mid-30s as the Civil War broke out. Clinton is meticulous (without being annoying) in distinguishing the speculative from the known in Tubman's private life. Of far greater consequence is Clinton's revelation of Tubman's public (though usually clandestine) work. In distinguishing between "runaways" and "fugitives," between "conductors" and "abductors... those who ventured into the South to extract slaves" ("all of them white men" before Tubman), in detailing the extent to which she "never wavered in her support" of John Brown, in chronicling her role in the Combahee River raid, Clinton turns sobriquets into meaningful descriptors of a unique person. In her hands, a familiar legend acquires human dimension with no diminution of its majesty and power.

October 15, 2003
Just in time for the opening of the Underground Railroad Freedom Center; purportedly the first big adult biography.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2003
\deflang1033\pard\plain\f3\fs24 Clinton, who has taught history at Harvard and has written 15 books, presents a full portrait of a complicated woman with deep religious convictions, incredible courage, and a passion for freedom. Tubman suffered from seizures and narcolepsy because of a head injury sustained when she tried to help an escaping slave. Her condition might have contributed to the constant visions she reported of fleeing harrowing circumstances and of danger signs that she often heeded to her benefit. Clinton recalls Tubman's vital role in the Underground Railroad; her relationship with other prominent antislavery activists of the time, including Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, and Sojourner Truth; her espionage and other services provided to the Union during the Civil War; and her later involvement in women's rights issues. Also covered are Tubman's early marriage, her many rescues of enslaved family members, the mysterious abduction of a fair-skinned girl who may have been her own daughter, and her later marriage to a man nearly 20 years her junior.

. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)