Irvin Painters novel "Sojorner Truth: A Life, A Symbol", is a book about one of the most influential and important black women of the nineteenth century. The story of a slave turned legend and the basis of her representation of the freedoms that African Americans struggled to gain. Painter digs deep into the history of Truth, giving in depth information about how this once female slave turned herself into a leading woman in the abolitionist movement. The text is better illustrated by Painters use of illustrations to strengthen his points, giving the biography a little more of a novel feel to it in terms of reading. One of the things that Painter did well was the use of in depth research and use of different sources to be able to tell the truth from fiction. Nell Irvin Painter is the author behind the book, and has …show more content…
The facts about Truth are very scarce to the academic world, born Isabella Van Wagenen sometime during the late 1700's, she successfully somehow managed to get her freedom by 1826. She changed her Christian name to Sojourner Truth and started her preaching life, being one of the highest respected and sought after speaker for the abolitionist and feminist movement. The only problem that Painter points out early on is, Truth was illiterate so there are almost no first hand records from herself, but instead by others who just followed her life. This left huge gaps in primary sources on her, as the real Truth was hidden to the people. Painters argument is not that Truths life is a fake, but that some of the stories and information on her life was fabricated and she wishes to find out how and why the information was falsified by historians. With that being said you can see how Painter goes above and beyond the written sources that past historians based there writings off