Source: History Detectives: "Quaker Map"
Funding for the VITAL/Ready to Teach collection was secured through the United States Department of Education under the Ready to Teach Program.
Gwendolyn Wright from The History Detectives has a mission: to determine if Anne Zorela's antique map is a diagram of the Underground Railroad routes. One reason Anne believes the map is authentic is because of the Quaker meeting houses pictured. The Quakers helped fugitive slaves along the railroad routes. The documented region was also a known hotbed of Underground Railroad activity. These and other reasons have her convinced but she wants more proof to support her conclusion. Professor Gwendolyn Wright disagrees with Anne because fugitives as well as conductors and helpers on the Railroad would’ve been discovered and killed if a map fell into the wrong hands.
African American history, social studies, geography, Ohio State History
The following Frame, Focus and Follow-up suggestions are best suited for middle school students using this video in an English language arts or social studies lesson. Be sure to modify the questions to meet your students' instructional needs.
What is Frame, Focus and Follow-up?
Frame (ELA) What is a conclusion? In order to draw a conclusion about a topic, what must you do? What type of information do you need?
Focus (ELA) As you watch the video, try to determine what conclusion Anne draws about her map. What information does she use to support her conclusion?
Follow Up (ELA) Does Anne have sufficient proof to support her conclusion about her map? Why or why not? Do you think her conclusion is correct? Provide details from the video to support your point.
Frame (SS) What was the Underground Railroad? What was its main purpose?
Focus (SS) As you watch the video, consider why the Underground Railroad was so secretive. What did escaped slaves and the people who helped them have to fear? What were the laws regarding slaves and the people who helped them at that time?
Follow Up (SS) Why are there so few documents from the Underground Railroad in existence? What groups of people can we conclude would have the most knowledge about how the railroad actually operated?
GWEN WRIGHT: The horrors of slavery forced those in bondage to make the ultimate choice – to remain in shackles or to risk their lives by escaping. By the late 1700s, as more northern states passed emancipation laws, rewards for the return of fleeing slaves became a standard feature in American newspapers. Under the constant threat of capture, the terrified escapees will eventually find a possible source of help, a secret network of individuals who in the 1800s come to be known as the Underground Railroad. Almost 200 years later, Anne Zarella from Bradley Beach, New Jersey, has a strange map she suspects may be related to this clandestine escape network. I'm Gwendolyn Wright and I’m meeting with Anne to take a look at what she found.
ANNE: And here's the map.
GWEN: Thank you. Well, I see here's the Ohio River in Southern Ohio. Now, how did you come to find this map?
ANNE: Well, my husband and I went to a garage sale in 1997. We bought the map for $45. It wasn't until I got it home and really looked at it that I noticed that it was unusual.
GWEN: Now where did you get the idea that this map was connected to the Underground Railroad?
GWEN: Anne's done a little research and has discovered that the area of her map, Southern Ohio, was a hotbed of Underground Railroad activity in the middle of the 19th century. She's also noticed a series of odd markings on her map.
ANNE: There are all these dotted lines, but none of them have a name. And, I began to wonder what kind of map it would be where you didn't name the roads that…so you wouldn't be traveling on roads. You'd be traveling in some secret way.
GWEN: Well, let's look at the key. "Those marked thus are meetings of friends..."
ANNE: Yes. And, I'm assuming that these were Quaker settlements.
GWEN: Well, the Quakers called themselves Friends and these must be their meeting houses.
ANNE: Right. Where they worshipped.
GWEN: You know there were a number of them, in fact, in this area.
ANNE: Yes. And, of course, the Quakers were related to the Underground Railroad. They helped the escaped slaves.
GWEN: Now, tell me exactly what you'd like for me to find out, Anne?
ANNE: I would like to know if the map is authentic. If it really was used for the Underground Railroad. If some conductor on the Underground Railroad actually carried the map. I can see it was carried by someone.
GWEN: Well, it'll be an interesting quest for me to see what I can find out. May I take it with me?
ANNE: Please do.
GWEN: Anne certainly has an intriguing map, but I’m not sure about her theory. I suspect not many roads in these rural areas had names back then. And it seems unlikely that a slave could have used a map like this. Most couldn't read. Anne thinks an Underground Railroad conductor, someone assisting escaping slaves may have carried it. That's possible, but it seems a bit far fetched. If he or she were caught, an entire network of safe places and people who tried to help would be destroyed. Here's the area we're looking at. Ohio, the Ohio River, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. But there's no date or signature, so it's hard to know who made Anne's map or when. We have very little material evidence from the Underground Railroad today. So if this map is what Anne thinks it is, it could be quite a significant find.
Academic standards correlations on Teachers' Domain use the Achievement Standards Network (ASN) database of state and national standards, provided to NSDL projects courtesy of JES & Co.
We assign reference terms to each statement within a standards document and to each media resource, and correlations are based upon matches of these terms for a given grade band. If a particular standards document of interest to you is not displayed yet, it most likely has not yet been processed by ASN or by Teachers' Domain. We will be adding social studies and arts correlations over the coming year, and also will be increasing the specificity of alignment.