This museum opened in 2021 in a neighborhood that was not only the center of the African-American community but played an outsize role in the abolitionist movement in the mid-19th century – spearheaded by the redoubtable Harriet Tubman herself. After attaining freedom herself, Harriet worked as a Cape May hotel maid to earn the funds to finance her journeys south to help free more slaves.

The museum provides immersive insight into the abolitionist movement, and the house in which it´s located, built around 1799, was the center of an active anti-slavery movement at the time. The Underground Railroad ran through this Cape May neighborhood. with Tubman and her allies as the conductors. I couldn’t help but wonder why it took them so long to honor this remarkable heritage.

Read more in Tripatini contributor Fyllis Hockman´s post Sea, Sun, Fun - and Victoriana: Escape to Another Era in Cape May, New Jersey.