Futility Closet

Georgia slaves Ellen and William Craft made a daring bid for freedom in 1848: Ellen dressed as a white man and, attended by William as her servant, undertook a perilous 1,000-mile journey by carriage, train, and steamship to the free state of Pennsylvania in the North. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the couple's harrowing five-day adventure through the slave-owning South. We'll also discover the best place in the United States to commit a crime and sample the aphoristic poetry of Danish mathematician Piet Hein. Our post on Ellen and Willliam Craft appeared on July 19, 2012. Here are the two as they normally appeared: And here's Ellen dressed as a rheumatism-ridden white man: In order to show her likeness clearly, this image omits the poultice that she wore on her chin. Their book Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom appeared in 1860. Here's an excerpt explaining what awaited them if they were confronted at any point on their 1,000-mile journey: If [a] coloured person ref