Master Slave Husband Wife
Book description
The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one…
Why read it?
4 authors picked Master Slave Husband Wife as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I had read about the protest that Ellen and William Craft staged along with other abolitionists at the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition of 1851 and wanted to know more, which is what led me to this book.
Woo expertly brings attention to the international networks of abolitionist activism and to the intersections of gender, race, and class, starting with Ellen Craft’s escape from slavery dressed as an elite white man.
I also appreciate that Woo models how to write about complex theoretical ideas and histories with clarity and precision while telling a powerful story. The book is a page-turner!
From Lydia's list on Victorian women who defied stereotypes.
At heart this book is a love story about an enslaved couple who escaped the South and lived to write about it.
Risking their lives to be free, in 1848 Helen and William Craft began a dangerous 5,000 mile journey from Macon, Georgia to England. Helen who passed for white, disguised herself as a man and was accompanied by her husband who pretended to be her black slave.
Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, this account of their courage, and what they endured from white enslavers is both a story of tragedy and triumph. I need books such as this to…
This well-researched true story reads like a suspense novel.
Ellen and William Craft uniquely escape their enslavement in Georgia: she passes as a white male Southern aristocrat, and he as her personal slave. After their harrowing journey north, they reach free Philadelphia, but as fugitive slaves, they are still in danger. Nonetheless, they join a lecture tour to support the Abolitionist cause.
Through their personal story, we learn the intimate complexities of slavery, the varying groups who oppose it and help fugitives, as well as those set on returning them to the South, and the difficulties that come to Blacks…
Years ago, I published an article on the Craft's escape and their antislavery work.
Woo’s passionate account of their escape taught me how much I still needed to know about this amazing couple and their flight to freedom and their struggle to build a life for themselves and their family in England and back in the US during Reconstruction.
From Richard's list on abolitionist biographies about African American history.
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