Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad

by Raymond G. Dobard and Jacqueline L. Tobin

Book Overview

The fascinating story of a friendship, a lost tradition, and an incredible discovery, revealing how enslaved men and women made encoded quilts and then used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad.

In Hidden in Plain View, historian Jacqueline Tobin and scholar Raymond Dobard offer the first proof that certain quilt patterns, including a prominent one called the Charleston Code, were, in fact, essential tools for escape...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385497679
• ISBN13: 9780385497671
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Nice patterns, long-since disproved premise

Several of the designs supposedly used as code did not exist at the time. Slaves had no way to read or write, and most did not intermingle with other slaves, so how would a slave in SC know what a certain pattern or color meant in NC? Many didn't speak English, and were from widely varied villages so seldom shared a dialect with other slaves nearby. It's a feel-good story that someone made up, that is still being shared because people want it to be true. Ignoring all the balderdash, this si a good quilting book with very useful patterns and ideas to sew.

Very much enjoyed this book

I found Ozella McDaniel Williams' revelations to be fascinating. I am not at all surprised about the ingenuity of the quilters in communicating the code to freedom. I enjoyed the telling of this oral history, and am greatful to Mrs. Williams, Ms. Tobin and Raymond Dobard for sharing.

Hidden in Plain View

I enjoyed reading the book, I read it twice and then I made a sampler quilt from the information that I got from reading it. I have shown the quilt to a number of people, I have told my grandchildren the story and the meaning of each block, it is a good conversation piece. I bought 6 of the books and gave them as gifts to friends and family. I have been asked to hang the quilt in the library during black history month.

Excellent oral history

Really good account of an oral history story. True, there aren't many concrete facts in this book, but not many concrete facts exist about women's day-to-day history, day-to-day African American slave history, and slave involvement in the Freedom Train. This book presents what has traditionally been an oral history story and "passes it on" to a wider audience. I thank the authors and Ozella McDaniel for letting me share in their community.

Let's get the facts straight

If you're interested in how human beings survive and thrive under adverse circumstances and are specifically interested in the reliance and resourcefulness of the bearers of African culture, you'll enjoy this book. I feel someone should respond to the profoundly inaccurate characterzations of this book by "danael@earthlink.net from California" and to a lesser degree "A reader from Oregon." Contrary to claims by Danael, NOWHERE in the book do the authors "attempt to usurp the origin of quilting patterns and assign them to another group." In fact, early on they state very clearly that the tradition of quilting they describe is "a cultural hybrid, mixing African encoding traditions with American quilt patterning conventions..." Another blatant inaccuracy is the statement that no original African-American quilts appear in the book. This is simply not true. The book contains color reproductions of African, traditional African-American, and contemporary African-American quilts, including a quilt belonging to Frederick Douglass. As for the Oregon reader's statement that "title is a misnomer as to total content" this is also not factual. The book's title "Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Undeground Railroad" is a very precise and complete description of the book's contents. Another statment by the same reviewer is so inaccurate as to be bizarre: "The amount of information contained about quilts and patterns and their meanings could be explained in a 1-2 page article." The origins and possible meanings of over ten patterns are discussed, each pattern requiring several pages worth of exposition. I hope that no one is discouraged from reading this remarkable book by reviews that fail the test of basic accuracy. This book is worthy of attention and study.

A fascinating, inspiring book

Dr. Dobard and Ms. Tobin tell a fascinating story, which I know they've been researching a long time. About a year after James Ransome's and my children's picture book, SWEET CLARA AND THE FREEDOM QUILT was published in 1993, I received a call from Ms.Tobin, who was searching for information about quilts and the underground railroad. Although the inspiration for Sweet Clara, a work of fiction, came from hearing a quilter on National Public Radio mention escape routes being sewn into quilts, we had never found actual documentation or confirmation. Now, incredibly, it seems that elements of the story, and the quilt James Ransome painted as Sweet Clara's escape route, somehow ring true to parts of Ozella McDaniel Williams' account of slaves using quilts to communicate.