• Gateway to Freedom

  • The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
  • By: Eric Foner
  • Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
  • Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (113 ratings)

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Gateway to Freedom

By: Eric Foner
Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
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Publisher's summary

The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. They are little known to history: Sydney Howard Gay, an abolitionist newspaper editor; Louis Napoleon, a furniture polisher; Charles B. Ray, a black minister. At great risk they operated the Underground Railroad in New York, a city whose businesses, banks, and politics were deeply enmeshed in the slave economy.

In secret coordination with black dockworkers who alerted them to the arrival of fugitives and with counterparts in Norfolk, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Albany, and Syracuse, underground-railroad operatives in New York helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Their defiance of the notorious Fugitive Slave Law inflamed the South. White and black, educated and illiterate, they were heroic figures in the ongoing struggle between slavery and freedom. Making brilliant use of fresh evidence - including the meticulous record of slave rescues secretly kept by Gay - Eric Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history.

©2015 Original material published by arrangement with W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"A masterwork [by] the preeminent historian of the Civil War era." ( Boston Globe)

"JD Jackson offers a solid, easy-on-the-ears narration of this reexamination of the Underground Railroad." (AudioFile)

What listeners say about Gateway to Freedom

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Hard to stay awake....

I have no doubt that extensive research lies behind this book. I do not doubt its accuracy. It is filled with details about the growth of antislavery organizations, but as the book clearly states the Underground Railroad was in reality an "umbrella association" of independent, sometimes competing groups which very much relied on the efforts of single individuals. It was not controlled from the top. The book focuses upon the antislavery proponents that lived in New York. This is partially explained by the fact that New York was home to the North's largest free black community, but New York plays such a prominent role that this should be indicated in the title. In addition the Underground Railroad was not hidden; everyone knew of it. The title is misleading, and it implies that you will be given a more exciting story than what is delivered.

The book description goes on to say that "...the city s underground-railroad agents helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Until now, their stories have remained largely unknown..." The central focus of this book is not the plight of these fugitives. Their stories are primarily collected in one chapter, chapter seven, near the book's end. No, the main focus is instead a plethora of historical details of the growth of the movement, its weak organization, its factional divisions, its agents, funding and slavery’s ties with business. Relevant laws and to what extent they were actually enforced, court proceedings and supportive publications are covered in detail. The book is rather dry.

The book lacks structure. It would be easier to remember all the laws, fugitive cases, leaders and controversies if the text had been better organized into a more cohesive structure. The details become a jumble in my head. There are quotes that are of little importance and other superfluous information too. Better editing please.

So the Underground Railroad saved about 3 to 4000 fugitives, the numbers being extremely hard to verify, but the slave population was 4 million in the South. 0.1 % benefited. Of course it was still important, but it was weakly organized and depended to a very large extent on the efforts of private individuals. All of this is good to know.

The narration of the audiobook, by J. D. Jackson, was clear and easy to follow, as long as I didn't fall asleep.

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent

Book exceeded my expectations. Detailed history of the Underground Railroad and its networks. I highly recommend this most important book.

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4 people found this helpful

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Lincoln Rocky

Very informative and interesting. I would recommend this book to anyone I know who might be interested in the history of the United States.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

fascinating book

This book by Eric Foner is full of surprises & revelations, it took the scales off my eyes regarding the underground railroad, on the one hand how small & balkanized it was, on the other how many dedicated, brave, money-starved idealists were involved in the work. It shows how few, when compared to the millions of slaves, were the successful escapes from the south, and how concentrated the escapes were in border states (and the rescues in the adjacent border states of the north. His focus on primary materials centered in New York City gives the whole thing an evidence that is not common in the usual, HS level treatments of the underground railroad. The book does get bogged down in a few spots by too much detail, but it is well-narrated & a good read for most of the way. Highly recommended (as are all of the Foner books available on Audible).

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

A great look at an important period

Would you listen to Gateway to Freedom again? Why?

Yes. I think there were a lot of details that I'd like to know more about.

What did you like best about this story?

I had accepted the conventional wisdom which said that the Underground Railroad was really a white-run charity project. Foner reverses that point of view and clearly shows how much of liberation was run by black Americans. And of course he DESTROYS the myth of "states rights" as the causus belli for the Civil War. The South in fact wanted a strong federal government to enforce fugitive slave laws to stop Northern attempts to deprive them of their so-called property.

Which scene was your favorite?

I think all of the stories about the incredible lengths to which the black anti-slavery societies went to free individual slaves, from hiding them, to raising money to purchase their freedom, to the vast communication network that kept them in the know about the movements of fugitives.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Eye opening and inspiring

Any additional comments?

This book quietly dispels any notion that abolition was a humanitarian movement of white people bringing salvation to black slaves. The complexity of politics, money, ambition, religion, race relations, moral power, evil, and the overwhelming desire to escape from bondage -- it all plays out here in detail. Above all the detail of the many black people who worked tirelessly in great danger for decades to bring about both personal and societal transformation. This is a book to be read to get a much clearer picture of the past era that has been so formative of our present. Also a book to be read if you want to think about how apparently impossible change might be brought about in our time.

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1 person found this helpful

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Superb history

Excellent history that filled in many gaps in my knowledge. Superbly written, beautifully read. As more and more detailed information is assembled and published about the history of slavery in this country, American history itself comes into greater focus. I would know like to learn more about how the Underground Railroad functioned here in the Midwest.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Could be a bit more focused

Slightly longer summary: A history of the loosely defined movement known as the Underground Railroad in and around New York City.

Eric Foner is one of the preeminent historians of the Reconstruction era. His book on Reconstruction and his book on the Constitutional Amendments passed during Reconstruction are both well worth reading. I would classify Gateway to Freedom as a less critical but still helpful book. There is a lot of mythology around the Underground Railroad. Gateway to Freedom is working to demythologize how organized it was (it wasn't very organized) while maintaining that the work that was done was dangerous, especially for Black people (whether free or formerly enslaved).

Gateway to Freedom concentrates on New York City. It may not be well known, but New York City broadly supported slavery. The mayor of NYC at the start of the Civil War floated the idea of joining the Confederacy, mainly because so much of the economy of NYC was centered on slavery or products derived from slavery. According to another book I am currently reading, while there were many Black residents of NYC, Philadelphia had the largest Black population of any city in the US until well after the Civil War.

Several books I have read this year overlap with Gateway to Freedom in part. A new biography of Sojourner Truth has a lot of overlap because Sojourner Truth was a slave in New York until she left her enslaver and she sued for the freedom of her child. And she remained in New York for years later. Christian Slavery discusses several of the exact same events, most importantly, a slave rebellion in NYC and the movement of Christians to evangelize those who were enslaved, especially through educational outreach in NYC. Until Justice Be Done is about the movement for civil rights between the US Revolution and the start of Reconstruction, which is precisely the same period as Gateway to Freedom. Both books touch on issues of transportation, fugitive slave laws, and citizenship rights. And the biography of Thaddeus Stevens, even though he was not ever a resident of NYC, his biography also touches on similar issues. The ability to get different nuances of overlapping issues is very helpful.

Similar to one of my observations from reading fairly widely about the 20th-century civil rights movement, many of the important figures are fairly unknown. Many people know at least the names of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. But names like William Still and Sydney Gay are unknown to almost anyone. Trying to help free the enslaved was dangerous, but part of the story is the investment of their own time and financial resources, which meant they could not use that time or resources for other purposes. Those who worked with the Underground Railroad were often on the edge of poverty (if not in significant poverty themselves) because they gave their time and money to those needing help instead of keeping it for themselves.

Another point that keeps coming up in histories of this era is that while many white figures did give time and money, they often still did not face the same potential for physical violence. Legal processes were just different between racial groups. Also, many abolitionists opposed slavery but not white superiority. Few wanted to mix socially, for instance. A final brief point is that legal representation matters. One of the problems of the fugitive slave laws was that there were no due process rules in many cases. This allowed many people to be kidnapped into slavery because the assumption was that all Black people were presumed to be former slaves, and the courts, especially after the Dred Scott decision, did not accept any testimony of Black people. That being said, white lawyers like the Jay family, who did represent those that were being accused of being runaway slaves or those that were being discriminated against on public transportation, were significantly crucial to changing laws and public opinion. The law has always been both important to maintaining slavery, segregation, and discrimination as well as important to bringing an end to them.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good but limited history

This is a history of the Underground Railroad and it’s relationship to NYC, thus it is not a general history. That being said it is excellent, as are all of Mr. Foner’s books and well read.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Chapters were out of order

This book was a good and informative book but I could not follow along due to the mix up of chapter in the app, there were four “chapter one” even though I chose specific chapters to read

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