WHY IN THE NAME OF HELL AND DAMNATION IS NOT THE NAME OF THIS HEROINE...

[fpb]

...AS FAMOUS AS THOSE OF WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN? WHY ARE THERE NO MONUMENTS TO HER IN THE CENTRE OF AMERICAN CITIES? WHY DOES SHE NOT HAVE A DAY DEDICATED TO HER??
I am an opponent of "positive discrimination"; and while I love the study of history in all its forms, I detest the motives why black history or women's history is pushed on us. But in this age of all ages, when these things are popular and approved, can anyone think of a reason why a woman whose whole life is one long record of endurance, heroism, fighting for the right with no limit and no reward, never taking a penny for herself when her people owed her so much, is not mentioned in one breath with Garibaldi and Lincoln and Gandhi the men of Marathon and Salamis and every hero and heroine of freedom? And why do Americans, who are certainly not shy of praising and promoting the heroes of their nation, barely seem to know the name of Harriet Tubman?

This is an extract from the introduction to her first biography: the first edition of this story, under the title of "Harriet Tubman," was written in the greatest possible haste, while the writer was preparing for a voyage to Europe. There was pressing need for this book, to save the poor woman's little home from being sold under a mortgage, and letters and facts were penned down rapidly, as they came in. The book has now been in part re-written and the letters and testimonials placed in an appendix.

For the satisfaction of the incredulous (and there will naturally be many such, when so strange a tale is repeated to them), I will here state that so far as it has been possible, I have received corroboration of every incident related to me by my heroic friend. I did this for the satisfaction of others, not for my own. No one can hear Harriet talk, and not believe every word she says. As Mr. Sanborn says of her, "she is too real a person, not to be true."

Many incidents quite as wonderful as those related in the story, I have rejected, because I had no way in finding the persons who could speak to their truth.

This woman was the friend of William H. Seward, of Gerritt Smith, of Wendell Phillips, of William Lloyd Garrison, and of many other distinguished philanthropists before the War, as of very many officers of the Union Army during the conflict.

After her almost superhuman efforts in making her own escape from slavery, and then returning to the South nineteen times, and bringing away with her over three hundred fugitives, she was sent by Governor Andrew of Massachusetts to the South at the beginning of the War, to act as spy and scout for our armies, and to be employed as hospital nurse when needed.

Here for four years she labored without any remuneration, and during the time she was acting as nurse, never drew but twenty days' rations from our Government. She managed to support herself, as well as to take care of the suffering soldiers.

Secretary Seward exerted himself in every possible way to procure her a pension from Congress, but red-tape proved too strong even for him, and her case was rejected, because it did not come under any recognized law.

The first edition of this little story was published through the liberality of Gerritt Smith, Wendell Phillips, and prominent men in Auburn, and the object for which it was written was accomplished. But that book has long been out of print, and the facts stated there are all unknown to the present generation. There have, I am told, often been calls for the book, which could not be answered, and I have been urged by many friends as well as by Harriet herself, to prepare another edition. For another necessity has arisen and she needs help again not for herself, but for certain helpless ones of her people.

Her own sands are nearly run, but she hopes, 'ere she goes home, to see this work, a hospital, well under way. Her last breath and her last efforts will be spent in the cause of those for whom she has already risked so much. Her last effort was, in fact, to set up and put on a sound founding a rest-house for elderly blacks in New York City; and for once, she had a little reward for her efforts, since that was the place where she died. But I say that her memory should be celebrated with drums and trumpets, and that her name should be one of those that sound to every decent human being like a moral call, like a reminder of what human beings can be.

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Don't they? I certainly have known her name a long time, and I learned it in America.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

So had I - vaguely. But this is not a name to be heard vaguely, as one of the many features of a great and complex piece of history. It is a name that should be heard like thunder, like Lincoln and St.Francis of Assisi, like Socrates and Beethoven. The mere record of what she did is incredible; the comparison with Garibaldi is intended. This was a woman who never stopped, and who did nearly everything she did on her own power and with what resources she managed to get for herself. Of how many people can you say that they set 400 slaves free? That, in spite of everything that powerful and watchful tyranny could do, never lost a single one? That she went to be a nurse, scout and spy for a great army and never was paid a penny, living entirely on her own resources while she cured the wounded and helped win the war? and that, once the great cause had been won, she did not rest, but kept fighting for the emancipation of women and for the benefit of elderly broken down blacks - one of the most helpless and invisible of the helpless? What can anyone say that matches such a record? God can, I can't. But I say that this woman ought to tower over American history like the great faces of those justly unforgotten Presidents on Mount Rushmore.

[bookwrm17.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, we did learn all about her in grade school. I hardly think she's an unknown figure. And there is a memorial to her in New York City.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Unless you regard her with awe, you don't know her enough. To say that you hardly think she's an unknown figure is not remotely enough.

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

I think she's about as famous as you can get without getting your picture on money or getting a day, historical figure wise. I remember we did a whole unit on the underground railroad in school and she was tops.

I think why she is not mentioned in the same breath with those people is that her work at the time of it was by necessity clandestine. She was not rallying people to her cause; other people rallied around her later in her life.

The people who get on money or get days are all pretty much of the public figure from the get go type: Susan B Anthony, MLK, etc. The only exception I can think of is Sacajawea, and in her case I think it's the romance of the story, the mythic grandeur of her presenting her newborn to the Pacific Ocean etc. For a very young country, it's nice to have those kinds of myths, and if they're based on truth, all the better.

FWIW, I had to think for a minute before I remembered who Garibaldi was precisely.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

All right, let's put it this way. Mother Theresa of Calcutta is famous around the world. Harriet Tubman showed many of the same qualities - tirelessness, incredible resourcefulness, complete self-reliance, total lack of fear, and infinite stores of compassion. Why is she not as famous as Mother Theresa?

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

Bl. Teresa, even more than Gandhi, was of the age of the photograph, television, film, and telephone. What's more, she was part of a Church that granted her an instant billion+ sympathetic worldwide audience. Plus, disregarding the Hitchens of the world who excoriate her for the crime of not helping the dying in the way they would like as they sit in their comfortable armchairs in judgment, pretty much no one could fault what she was doing. I would also add that Bl. Teresa also had came around at the right time to fill in a spot in the popular imagination as shorthand for a saintly person, sort of like the rhetorical anti-Hitler.

Tubman's cause at the beginning was not just controversial but against the law of the land, and the change in public attitude was gradual. By the time her cause received near-universal public acclaim, she was a century dead, and not only she but many others in the greater cause of black emancipation were sort of grouped together. I think most Americans think of Tubman as one of a host of abolitionists.

To sum up, I don't think it was necessarily these qualities of tirelessness etc that made Bl. Teresa famous. She is one of the select (possibly the hardest to acheive) coterie of celebrity saint. Hardest to achieve because celebrity is full of potential corruption. To me, her fame is kind of incidental.

To be one whom the world loves is always dangerous, right?

I wrote this comment in robbed bits and pieces of time over the day so I hope it makes sense.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And your point is? The War of Secession was the first media war, with photographers following the armies everywhere and reporters from all countries making instant celebrities of most commanders and many lesser figures. Reports were telegraphed all over the globe and made front-page news from Chile to Russia. And the rest of it just brings out my point. "I think most Americans think of Tubman as one of a host of abolitionists." Exactly.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

A few things about Giuseppe Garibaldi that you may not know. 1) It is certain and proved - otherwise you might think it was a legend - that in the course of his life he saved at least twelve people from drowning. Of course he was a ship's captain by profession, but I doubt many sailors have saved even one life. 2)In all his life he never accepted one penny, or a medal, or a title, for all his achievements as freedom fighter. He lived on the money he earned as a seaman, and the barren little island where he eventually settled was bought with money from an inheritance. 3) In 1831, fleeing his country with a death sentence on his head, he heard that a cholera epidemic had exploded in Marseille. He went straight over and volunteered to work as a nurse. 4) In his old age, he became vegetarian, and the last of the many things he did for Italy was to be the founder and celebrity testimonial of its first Humane Society - this at a time when Italian farmers and carters were notorious for abusing their beasts. 5)As the Civil War was starting, President Lincoln sent an emissary to sound him out about taking command of Union troops. Garibaldi put a few conditions, one of which was that the war was to be for the liberation of slaves. Lincoln at the time did not feel politically able to say so, and Garibaldi rejected the most prestigious and powerful appointment yet offered to him.

He also fought for liberty in half a dozen countries, of course, but educated people know all about that. Garibaldi was notoriously anti-clerical and anti-Catholic, and yet the stature of the man was such that his entry in the Italian Catholic Encyclopedia starts with "Hero".

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

Harriet Tubman is pretty famious. She is studied by all school children.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As a minor figure in a densely populated tapestry. Which is the more famous - her or Robert E.Lee? Which DESERVES to be more famous? "Pretty famous" is not enough.

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

That is an interesting question. I would say she is more famous up north and Lee is more famous down south.

I certainly agree that she could be more famous. I feel the same way about Frederick Douglas. If you have never read his autobiography, it is really worth it. Tubman, and probably Douglas, too, get a boost here nowadays because February is Black History Month, and schools want to study the famous figures who fit into that catagory.

My son's entire class went on a campout recently. One of the activities they had was an Underground Railroad game...in honor of Tubman, of course.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Let's get one thing straight. Lee was an upright gentleman and a fine general, who did what he thought right in a time of distress and confusion. But I think Harriet Tubman is as much above him as gold is above silver, and she was on the right side.

[arhyalon.livejournal.com]

Agreed!

Very few monuments to poor single childless women

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

No matter what they did. And they people who receive the most help are least likely to erect monuments of stone. (I don't expect real heroes want them. They'd be happier to know children are happy remembering them with a game.)
I found a few statues of Tubman on the internet when I looked for the one I knew in Boston(http://www.teachervision.fen.com/african-american-history/historic-sites/4554.html)
Another in New York City:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/why-is-harriet-tubman-facing-south/
And a church saved her New York home as a historic site:
http://www.nyhistory.com/harriettubman/life.htm

My girlfriend lives in Maryland where she was born, and said there was a marker at Tubman's birthplace, but it isn't an historic site http://www.flickr.com/photos/harry_hunt/4093517097/.

Re: Very few monuments to poor single childless women

[fpb.livejournal.com]

...there was a marker at Tubman's birthplace, but it isn't an historic site...

(shakes head)

Don't be vexed

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

The slave quarters where she was born no longer exist. The farm field in the general place has a marker. Her museums are in that town, and in Auburn, New York. She is remembered as a brave woman who cared for people and brought them out of bondage.

[sanscouronne.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking about this since you posted. And you are totally correct.
I learned about her in primary school, and that is about it. And as much as she was lauded then, this does
not give her the credit she deserves. Not even close.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

I think you answer your own question: " . . .I detest the motives why black history or women's history is pushed on us."

Many Americans are automatically suspicious of any woman or black person who is lauded by historians or activists as a hero; if she was that important, wouldn't I have heard of her? It thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; attempts to educate are seen as attempts to indoctrinate, and there's already a wide-spread assumption that the accomplishments of minorities must be exaggerated, anyway.

Also, Tubman was definitely more of a doer than a talker/writer, and she didn't (as far as I'm aware . . .) leave a body of quotable speeches or essays that make for easy inclusion in textbooks or soundbites. As opposed to e.g. Sojourner Truth, who, I'd say, is much more well-known due in no small part to her quotability.

Incidentally, I've known of Tubman since I was a child, and I was definitely taught of her in school; this was in a state which didn't exist during the Civil War, so one may safely assume nationwide rather than regional educational biases regarding the era.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

And I would add, the woman deserves every accolade, and a statue in the state capitol would be the least of it.