Authors! with Ilyon Woo

Join us for Authors! with Ilyon Woo as she shares the journey of husband and wife, William and Ellen Craft.

ABOUT THE BOOK: 1848 was a year of global democratic revolt. Sicily, Paris, Berlin, Vienna – people across Europe rose up against tyrannical power. Americans received news of these uprisings while the ground beneath their own feet shifted: there were five hundred thousand square miles of new territory to be claimed westward; immigrants from Ireland, Germany, China, and elsewhere were arriving; in New York, the first Women’s Rights Convention was held; and the two-party political system was breaking down as voters became polarized over the issue of slavery.

Against this backdrop, in Macon, Georgia, the enslaved married couple William and Ellen Craft planned their escape from bondage. Their story is one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as a master and slave, sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across 1,000 miles in broad daylight, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains from bondage to the free states of the North.

The world is remembering the heroic couple. In 2023, the year of the 175th anniversary of the Crafts’ escape, MASTER SLAVE HUSBAND WIFE: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo launched a renaissance for the Crafts and their story. The book brings William and Ellen Craft’s cinematic story of daring, determination, and love to life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ilyon Woo is the New York Times best-selling author of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom and The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and The New York Times, and she has received support for her research from the Whiting Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Antiquarian Society, among other institutions. She holds a BA in the Humanities from Yale College and a PhD in English from Columbia University.

About the Presentation: At each program, authors speak for about forty-five minutes, followed by a short question and answer session. Tickets are required to attend. A paperback copy of the book is included with the ticket.