SDFM Presents: The Education of Harriet Tubman

Local historian and author Phillip Hesser will look at the “coming up” of Harriet Tubman and how she received a Dorchester County education in
the “2 Fs & 2Ls” – Family, Faith, Learning quickly & Listening always.

Harriet Tubman said that she was not “brought up,” but “came up” in her native land of South Dorchester County, Maryland. Despite the privations and abuse of growing up as an enslaved person, Tubman and other enslaved people received an education very much like that received by most of the free people – black or white – of early 19th century Dorchester. Co-author of the recently-published A Guide to Harriet Tubman’s Eastern Shore – The Old Home Is Not There, Phil Hesser will look at how the “2Fs and 2Ls” served as the way by which most of the people of South Dorchester came up in the era before public education for all.

A former Adjunct Professor at Salisbury University, Phillip Hesser, Ph.D., progs through the land, life, and livelihood of the Delmarva past with special attention to South Dorchester. He is the author of What a River Says – Exploring the Blackwater River and Refuge (2014) and A Guide to Harriet Tubman’s Eastern Shore – The Old Home Is Not There (2021). When he is not sleuthing, he can be found running the marsh roads and joining his pint-sized pooches Marshall and Bayly on their explorations of the paths taken by deer and foxes.

The South Dorchester Folk Museum (SDFM), in cooperation with the Dorchester County Historical Society, presents this FREE program in its lecture series about local history.
For information about this program or the SDFM, call 410-228-6175 or email Lynne Schulman at jlaschulman@yahoo.com. The public is warmly invited to attend. Reservations are not needed.