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Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol

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Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol undertakes an interesting challenge as historian Nell Irvin Painter attempts to produce a "historically accurate" biography of a subject that left little evidence of her life. Moreover, Painter takes on another interesting challenge by attempting to analyze the meaning of Sojourner Truth the symbol-a task that requires her to analyze the layers of evidence produced by those who did document Sojourner Truth's life. Is she successful at producing a historically "accurate" biography? Does she successfully "peel back the myth and the legend" in the evidence left by those who documented Truth's life?

I think Painter is somewhat successful at presenting a historically accurate biography. I say somewhat because, on the one hand, she presents compelling evidence assembled from primary sources that document Truth's life-newspaper accounts, monographs, etc. And she obviously has a thorough command of the secondary sources related to Sojourner Truth. What is more, I think that her methodology-what she calls "more or less uncommon research methods"-allows her to reconstruct a version of Truth's life as best as possible. Assembling the pieces of an immense jigsaw puzzle such as this requires great patience and historical skill, both of which Painter exhibits in this work.

On the other hand, her command of the supporting sources, the sources that provide context for her analysis of the primary sources, is a little less complete. For example, as Painter acknowledges, religion-popular religion-is central to understanding American culture. And I think that in this case, one must have a thorough understanding of religion and the Bible to effectively document Truth's life. However, Painter makes at least one glaring mistake in her narrative when she conflates the stories of Lazarus the beggar, and Lazarus the brother of Mary and Martha (p. 127). Painter makes this fundamental error in her analysis of Truth's speech in an apparent attempt to interject an element of "class consciousness" into Truth's abolitionist-feminist discourse. Jesus did not resurrect Lazarus the beggar. Jesus resurrected Lazarus the brother of Mary and Martha, a well-respected and influential patron (the Lazarus to whom Truth refers). Does a gaff such as this mortally wound the entire analysis? Probably not. But, in a book that so heavily relies on "imaginative methods" and "unknowns," it is probably a good idea to have command of the "knowns"-in this case the New Testament.

This analytical error also points to problems in answering the question concerning whether Painter succeeds in "peeling back the myth and legend." Persons who produced the majority of the evidence that Painter uses had a vested interest in Truth the symbol, which eventually led to the perpetuation of myth and legend. Truth is often used to advance causes such as abolitionism and feminism. And while Painter dismisses those who have used Truth the symbol and perpetuated myth and legend, she is left with little without this evidence. In the end Painter concedes that one can not separate the symbol and the person without destroying the "cultural significance" of Sojourner Truth. Cultural significance trumps historical accuracy in the final chapter. And paradoxically, it appears Painter falls into the same trap as her predecessors as she "peels back" the myth and legend. Her analysis on pages 126 and 127 (and in other places throughout the book) strongly suggests that she is adding her own layers and doing to Sojourner Truth, what others-the ones she dismisses-have done.

Ms. Painter does a complete job of culling an abundance of information and ascertaining the real Sojourner Truth from the mythologized one who has been passed down to most of us by way of cursory teaching and mentioning of in classrooms. This scholarly book is rife with interesting and, at times, disturbing facts about not only the woman named Sojourner, but also about the country named America with its racist and sexist policies and practices.

The book is written in a clear and cohesive style, notwithstanding its rigorous documentation. Anyone who is interested in African American history, women's history, and U.S. history will want to have a copy of Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol in his or her library.

Painter's biography is excellent. She puts Truth in perspective with the challenges of her time. She sheds light on complicated relationships with noteable Abolishionists and with her own children. This book clearly presents the difficult life of one incredible woman who struggles to do her part to free all slaves, gain respect as a woman and be accepted as a human being.

When I read a book, I want to get a lot out of it, as I enjoy the reading of it. On the second point: this book is engagingly written. The author questions her own motives and information as she constructs a biography of a difficult life to document. We see Painter confront the challenges of performing biography. I found it a compelling literary device. On the first point, the book mixes biography with history and feminist criticism. This interdisciplinary focus produces a highly inviting book. Among other topics, we find out about the details of slavery in the North, 19th century religious cults, and the ways in which feminists and abolitionists of the time exploited Truth for their own gain, as well as how this appropriation of "Truth" continues to the present. On this point, we learn much about contemporary feminism and culture and its need for heroes-especially African American female heroes.

Painter makes unique recognition of the fact that Sojourner Truth was a self-created identity, and approaches her story through many layers: what do we know? We cannot know as much about Sojourner Truth as we can about other historic figures because Sojourner herself was illiterate. A unique figure -- an orator of historic power, but unable to write or in other ways preserve her own words. All that we can know is what other people wrote or quoted. Yet the written sources disagree: they quote her in black dialect that witnesses say she did not use! People hailed her as a uniquely talented African-born slave, when in fact she was born in New York speaking Dutch as her first language. She lived among African Americans only for short periods late in her life. Her own posed and widely-distributed photographs show only her black skin to differentiate her from any other middle-class matron.

So what is truth? Who is Truth? Is this person Isabella Van Wagenen, or is she really the myth she created. Painter recognizes these layers and sorts out Truth from myth and truth from reality, without concluding that one is more important than the other. Very well done.

This book takes a bit of work; Ms. Painter's gift is more that of an analyst than a storyteller. Like most of the great Victorian novelists, she takes time introducing us to her method, setting up her characters, creating a scaffolding for the weight of her insights. She's as concerned with how mythology becomes accepted as historical truth as she is in her particular subject here. Painter rewards patience with one of the more stunning passages in historical writing (beginning page 139 with discussion of the breast-baring incident); a deft skewering of the sentimentalist Harriet Beecher Stowe; and proves herself as sure-handed a strangler of demons and challenger of assumptions as Sojourner Truth herself. Painter is an intellectually bracing and thoroughly honorable historian, asking the right questions and avoiding the temptation to fill in the blanks in her story with a romantic or political agenda.

This book is an excellent review and account of this great woman's life. Although it is rather disjointed in areas--there is a basic sense of the many challenges that Ms. Truth encountered. I found that it gave me a basic sense of her sojourn and it helped fill in the gaps left with other books. It was the basic information for an academic presentation I needed to prepare for one of my doctoral courses.

For some reason, most Americans know, or think they know, quite a bit about the Civil War. But somehow the decades before the great drama of the 1860's are little known to most of us. It's almost as if everything between the Revolutionary War and the American Civil War happened under a cloud or in some shadowed universe that sends out very few signals to modern Americans. In reality, the country went through a time of near-chaos as competing political and religious movements battled for the minds and hearts of the American public.

Sojourner Truth, the subject of this biography, experienced a good bit of this social ferment, and the story of her life gives readers a good opportunity to get a grip on this very strange and fascinating period. The author starts with the odd fact that the name and face of Sojourner Truth became very well-known, yet the real story of her life was obscured by her status as a symbol of the Abolitionist movement. The real woman led a surpringly adventurous life, and she did it in the context of a society that supposedly kept slaves, women and rural poor people firmly in their pre-ordained place. The story of how a courageous girl named Katherine, born in slavery and poverty on a Dutch farm in rural New York state, became the free woman and independent thinker called Sojourner Truth, is worth reading for its own sake. But the book also sheds light on the wild side of American religious and intellectual life during her lifetime. While reading this book, I felt like I was really getting two books in one-I highly recommend this book!!

The Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) awarded this book its 1997 Nonfiction award. The awards recognize excellence in adult fiction and nonfiction by African American authors

I used to love this book and found it very compelling when I read it several years ago. However, Margaret Washington's new (2009) biography of Truth vets the historical sources far more carefully. Washington's work has the effect of overturning much of what Painter presents as "truth" (pun intended) and offering a much fuller, more contextualized, and more convincing narrative of Truth's life.