![]() Slaves fled in every direction of the compass, but the metaphor packed its greatest wallop in those communities closest to the nation’s whistle-stops. ![]() Antebellum railroads existed primarily in the North–home to about 70 percent of the nation’s 30,000 miles of track by 1860. The phrase also highlights a specific geographic orientation. There had certainly been slave escapes before that period, but they were not described by any kind of railroad moniker. There could be no “underground railroad” until actual railroads became familiar to the American public–in other words, during the 1830s and 1840s. Understanding the history of the phrase changes its meaning in profound ways.Įven to begin a lesson by examining the two words “underground” and “railroad” helps provide a tighter chronological framework than usual with this topic. In this case, the metaphor described an array of people connected mainly by their intense desire to help other people escape from slavery. But the phrase “Underground Railroad” is better understood as a rhetorical device that compared unlike things for the purpose of illustration. The more literal-minded students end up questioning whether these fixed escape routes were actually under the ground. Yet many textbooks treat it as an official name for a secret network that once helped escaping slaves.
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