The Agitators

Harriet Tubman,strategically brilliant and uncannily prescientrescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. In AuburnNew Yorkshe entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wrighta Quaker abolitionist and leader of the women’s rights movementand Frances A. Sewardwhose husband served as New York’s governor and senatorand then as secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln. The Agitators opens in the 1820swhen Tubman is enslaved in Maryland and Wright and Seward are young homemakers in upstate New Yorkbound by law and traditionand it ends after the Civil War. Many of the most prominent figures of the era-William H. SewardLincolnFrederick DouglassElizabeth Cady StantonCharles SumnerJohn BrownWilliam Lloyd Garrison-are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about the civil rights of African Americans and womenabout the enlistment of Black troopsand about opposing interpretations of the Constitution. Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about and its lasting effects on the country. Profoundly relevant to our own timeThe Agitators brings a vibrantoriginal voice to this transformative period in our history. Book jacket.