Lia, Yes!! Do get it on Snopes. Your assessment is mild compared to what Merry Stahel wrote when Tobin's book first came out.
A woman in Racine, WI, was so taken with Tobin's thesis and the book that she created a whole quilt project using the patterns Tobin references. I saw the exhibit (at the Lemon Street Gallery in Kenosha, WI) in July. Nice quilts.
However, it's a good thing I was not asked my opinion of the thesis.
Nann in Winthrop Harbor, Illinois
Thanks for the note of support. The trouble with the diehard believers
>comes from the fact that it is just such an appealing myth. I know when
>I first read a review of Tobin's book I couldn't wait to read it. It
>had everything-- quilts, oral tradition, good guys (escaping slaves)
>triumphing over bad guys (bounty hunters). No wonder there have been
>more books perpetuating the myth and even museum exhibits referring back
>to the original premise. People WANT to belive something so appealing. >
>In truth, the underground railroad was never as organized as we like to
>think. There are tons of inaccuracies in the Tobin book. There is NO
>corroborating evidence of any sort despite diaries, letters, WIP
>interviews with former slaves. All we've got on the theory is one woman
>who can no longer be reached who told another woman that it was part of
>her oral history. And yet no one else seems to have heard of it until
>they read the book.
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>I keep wondering about writing it up for the Snopes website or if
>Skeptic Magazine would take on an item concerning history, not science.
> Better yet, I wish Barbara Brackman, who has written articles on the
>subject and is such a fine quilt historian, would publish a rebuttal book. >
>--Lia
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