No, I don’t mean some people think it was made up of actual trains, although when Toronto had a soul food restaurant called The Underground Railroad, I heard they were asked about that occasionally (often by American tourists…)
[Siebert] presented a picture of a highly organized system with thousands of agents and what he called a ‘great and interested network of stations leading up to Canada,’ an image reinforced by detailed maps which were largely a product of his imagination,” he said.
This remained unchallenged until the 1960s, when another historian published a book that demolished much of what Siebert had done. According to this historian, “the idea of a highly organized system ferrying multitudes to freedom was a myth,” Foner said.
