Harriet

Born into slavery in Maryland in 1822, Harriet Tubman escaped to Philadelphia in 1849, returning soon after to rescue her family. She devoted her life to abolitionism and activism, personally rescuing about 70 enslaved people. During the Civil War, she worked for the Union Army and in 1863 in South Carolina was the first woman to lead an armed assault in the war, which led to the freeing of more than 750 enslaved people. An icon in the fight for equality and civil rights, Tubman also worked later in her life to promote women’s suffrage.

In this print, her courage, strength, and leadership as she conducts a group of people to freedom on the Underground Railroad are communicated by the forceful forward motion of her arm and stance, and her determined gaze. Elizabeth Catlett’s use of a low viewpoint and dramatic sky also impart to Tubman a monumental, heroic stature.