Photographers
Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad by Jeanine Michna-Bales
PhotocriticEtcThe Underground Railroad was a network of hiding places and persons who helped fugitive slaves to reach free states during the early to mid 19th century in the United States.
In Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad (Princeton Architectural Press / February 2017), American photographer Jeanine Michna-Bales presents a series of images taken in the dead of night that reveal historical sites, cities, and places that freedom-seekers passed through, including homes of abolitionists who offered them sanctuary.
Michna-Bales’ images follow a route from the cotton plantations of central Louisiana, through the cypress swamps of Mississippi and the plains of Indiana, north into Canada—a path of nearly fourteen hundred miles. The culmination of a ten-year research quest, Through Darkness to Light imagines an epic journey to liberty as it might have appeared to any freedom seeker.
Through Darkness to Light by Jeanine Michna-Bales is published by the Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN: 978-1-61689-565-5, $40.00 / £27.99
