Editing Underground Railroad (section)

==Origin of the name==
[[Eric Foner]] wrote that the term "was perhaps first used by a Washington newspaper in 1839, quoting a young slave hoping to escape bondage via a railroad that 'went underground all the way to Boston'".{{sfn|Foner|2015|pp=6–9}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Pettit |first=Eber M. |title=Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad |publisher=Chautauqua Region Press |year=1999 |orig-year=1879 |location=Westfield, NY |url=https://archive.org/details/sketchesinhistor0000pett/page/130/mode/2up |isbn=0-9658955-3-X |ref=pettit1879}}, p. 131</ref> Dr. Robert Clemens Smedley wrote that following slave catchers' failed searches and lost traces of fugitives as far north as [[Columbia, Pennsylvania]], they declared in bewilderment that "there must be an underground railroad somewhere," giving origin to the term.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smedley |first=Robert C. |title=History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the neighboring counties of Pennsylvania |date=1883 |publisher=[[Stackpole Books]] |isbn=978-0-8117-3189-8 |edition= |location=Mechanicsburg, Pa |pages=34–35}}</ref> [[Scott Shane]] wrote that the first documented use of the term was in an article written by [[Thomas Smallwood]] in the August 10, 1842, edition of ''Tocsin of Liberty'', an abolitionist newspaper published in Albany. He also wrote that the 1879 book ''Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad'' said the phrase was mentioned in an 1839 Washington newspaper article and that the book's author said 40 years later that he had quoted the article from memory as closely as he could.<ref>{{cite news |last=Shane |first=Scott |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opinion/man-who-named-underground-railroad.html |title=How the Underground Railroad Got Its Name |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=September 11, 2023 |access-date=September 11, 2023}}</ref><ref>Shane, Scott, ''Flee North A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery's Borderland'' (Macmillan, London, 2023), pp. 117–118.</ref>

===Terminology===

Members of the Underground Railroad often used specific terms, based on the metaphor of the railway. For example:
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* People who helped fugitive slaves find the railroad were "agents"
* Guides were known as "conductors"
* Hiding places were "stations" or "way stations"
* "Station masters" hid escaping slaves in their homes
* People escaping slavery were referred to as "passengers" or "cargo"
* Fugitive slaves would obtain a "ticket"
* Similar to common [[gospel]] lore, the "wheels would keep on turning"
* Financial benefactors of the Railroad were known as "stockholders"<ref>Blight, David, 2004, p. 98</ref>
* Promised Land – code word for Canada
* River Jordan – code word for Ohio River
* Heaven – code for freedom or Canada<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wade |first1=Phyllis |title=Signal Songs of the Underground Railroad |url=https://discoverytheater.org/forms/guides/2017/feb/Signal%20Songs%20of%20the%20Underground%20Railroad%20Learning%20Guide.pdf |website=Smithsonian Institution |access-date=14 September 2024}}</ref>
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The [[Big Dipper#Guidepost|Big Dipper]] (whose "bowl" points to the [[North Star]]) was known as the [[Follow the Drinkin' Gourd|drinkin' gourd]]. The Railroad was often known as the "freedom train" or "Gospel train", which headed towards "Heaven" or "the Promised Land", i.e., Canada.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://freedomcenter.org/enabling-freedom/history| title=History – National Underground Railroad Freedom Center| website=Freedomcenter.org| access-date=June 7, 2016| archive-date=August 17, 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180817144323/http://freedomcenter.org/enabling-freedom/history| url-status=dead}}</ref>