Even after the Civil War, blacks despaired of being treated as equals in a white man’s world. They were deprived of many of the most basic rights of citizenship, and were often cheated and exploited. As a result they clung tenaciously to that most important of new rights—the right to move. At Freedom’s Edge is William Cohen’s comprehensive history of black mobility from the Civil War to World War I. Cohen treats mobility as a central component of black freedom, crucial in the emergence of a free labor system, and equally crucial as an obstacle to the persistent southern white effort to reassert hegemony over blacks in all areas of life. This study has a rigorously southern focus. Most historians of black migration concentrate on telling how the migrants adjusted to northern life, but Cohen provides detailed accounts of internal southern movement and efforts to leave the South. He also examines the relative absence, during this period, of significant migration to the North. Cohen presents a thorough treatment of the efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau to restructure the southern labor system, showing how heavily this organization was influenced by questions involving black mobility. He also gives the fullest picture yet of the postwar emergence of the occupation of the labor agent. Among the migration episodes he considers are the Liberia movement, the Kansas exodus, the movement of blacks from Georgia and the Carolinas to Arkansas and Mississippi, and the migration to Oklahoma. The post-Reconstruction era was marked by a concerted white thrust to destroy black freedom. Cohen shows that while whites succeeded in establishing almost total dominion in the political and social realms, they failed when they tried to erect a system of involuntary servitude that would seriously limit black movement. Cohen argues that the difference here arose from the fact that whites were largely united on matters such as suffrage and segregation but were divided on the desirability of immobilizing the black labor force. Those who depended on black labor sought legal formulas aimed at stopping black movement. They met resistance, however, from those who did not share their economic interests. This study, then, is almost as much a legal history of white efforts to interdict black movement as it is a history of black migration. At Freedom’s Edge is a probing study of the black search for freedom within freedom.

"[This book is] an ... examination of how we can respond to suffering, live our fullest lives, and remain open to the full spectrum of our human experience"--Amazon.com.

Cohen presents a thorough treatment of the efforts of the freedmen's Bureau to restructure the southern labor system, showing how heavily this organization was influenced by questions involving black mobility.

Romance and Suspense Burn on Every Page of Ludwig's Latest Ana Kavanagh's only memories of home are of fire and pain. As a girl she was the only survivor of a terrible blaze, and years later she still struggles with her anger at God for letting it happen. At a nearby parish she meets and finds a kindred spirit in Eoghan Hamilton, who is struggling with his own anger--his sister, Cara, betrayed him by falling in love with one of his enemies. Cast aside by everyone, Eoghan longs to rejoin the Fenians, a shadowy organization pushing for change back in Ireland. But gaining their trust requires doing some favors--all of which seem to lead back to Ana. Who is she and who is searching for her? As dark secrets from Ana's past begin to come to light, Eoghan must choose which road to follow--and where to finally place his trust.

"David Smith's On The Edge of Freedom is the most nuanced, detailed and sophisticated study of the Underground Railroad in rural Pennsylvania that I have ever read. Based on a wide variety of primary sources, this study offers a series of fresh insights about how the fugitive crisis along the Mason-Dixon Line directly impacted the wider national struggle over slavery and union." -- Matthew Pinkser, Dickinson College. David G. Smith has delivered a revelatory portrait of one of the most important political battlegrounds of antebellum America, where networks of fugitive slaves, slave-catchers, informers, and Underground Railroad activists lived side by side in a tangled web. He sheds much new light on the struggle of the abolitionism to take route in southern Pennsylvania's difficult soil, and challenges cherished preconceptions of the North as solidly anti-slavery and friendly to fugitive slaves. In the process, he has given us a deeper understanding of the daunting moral complexities of life in the pre-Civil War borderland. This is a book to be reckoned with."-Fergus M. Bordewich, author of America"s Great debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union. In this well wrought and powerful narrative, Smith examines the vital borderland of south central Pennsylvania. Challenging scholars to re-think our understanding of the fugitive slave law, Smith examines that issue through white and black perspectives over nearly fifty years of sectional conflict, war, and reconstruction. This is an important contribution to our understanding of how war itself intensified the fugitive slave issue and redirected it. Smith's thorough appendices demonstrate remarkable and comprehensive research reflected in this important narrative."-Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln.

The Thrill of Romantic Suspense Meets the Romance of 1800s America Lured by a handful of scribbled words across a faded letter, Cara Hamilton sets off from 1896 Ireland on a quest to find the brother she'd thought dead. Her search lands her in America, amidst a houseful of strangers and one man who claims to be a friend--Rourke Walsh. Despite her brother's warning, Cara decides to trust Rourke and reveals the truth about her purpose in America. But he is not who he claims to be, and as rumors begin to circulate about an underground group of dangerous revolutionaries, Cara's desperation grows. Her questions lead her ever closer to her brother, but they also bring her closer to destruction as Rourke's true intentions come to light.