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Harriet Tubman And Harriet Beecher Stowe's Role In The Underground Railroad

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The Significance of Harriet Tubman and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s involvement in the Underground Railroad (as part of the Abolitionist Movement, 1850-1860)
The Underground Railroad is not what it may appear in its most literal sense; it is in fact a symbolical term for the two hundred year long struggle to break free from slavery in the U.S. It encompasses every slave who tried to escape and every free person who helped them to do so. The origins of the railroad are hidden in obscurity yet eventually it expanded into one of the earliest Civil Rights movements in the US. In this essay I will examine the Underground Railroad over a period of turbulence that spanned ten years and focus on some of the key figures involved and the significance of their roles. Harriet Tubman and Harriet Breecher Stowe were both central to the movement during this time and although they focused their attention on vastly different areas of the Railroad both women had a profound and positive impact.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was a white woman from Cincinnati Ohio. When the Fugitive Slave Act 1850 came into effect it ironically galvanised a new era in the Underground Railroad where Stowe, like many other whites was spurred into action. Not only did Stowe personally aid escaping slaves by welcoming them into her home temporarily but her book ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ had immediate social and political repercussions. She reenergised anti-slavery forces in the North, propelling the US towards civil war and
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