Description
- Abstract:
- The design of this forty-foot-long gathering space connects the African American Water Trail, the natural spaces of Beaubien Woods on the Far South Side of Chicago, and the Little Calumet River. The space marks the beginning of the Trail, which contains Underground Railroad sites. The boat design is a reference to the journeys undertaken by those travelers on Chicago’s Underground Railroad along the river. The blue log path inside the gathering space and the columned portal that it leads to also represent journeys—their entries and exits. Furthermore, the portal itself is an entryway to another path, a natural one in the Forest Preserves, again symbolizing a way out of bondage and toward freedom.
- Notes:
- Prairie Boat (Chicago, Illinois), Brown University Library
- Digital object made available by: Brown University Library, Center for Digital Scholarship, Box A, Brown University, Providence, RI, 02912, U.S.A., (http://library.brown.edu/)
Access Conditions
- Rights
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- Restrictions on Use
- Collection is open for research.
Citation
Perri, Christine,
"Prairie Boat (Chicago, Illinois)"
(2023).
Underground Railroad.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:a2h9gre2/
Relations
Collection:
-
Underground Railroad
...The memorial and monuments in this collection are dedicated to the Underground Railroad, an organized network of routes and safe houses that assisted freedom seekers [enslaved people] on their journeys northward. The Underground Railroad was part of the larger movement …