Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811, in Connecticut. She was the seventh child of a famous protestant preacher. Harriet worked as a teacher with her older sister Catharine, at the Hartford Female Academy. She was also an established writer. She helped support her family financially by writing local and religious periodicals.
Harriet began writing when she was young, beginning with poems, travel books, and children’s books, and eventually writing adult novels. Her first adult novel that she wrote and published was Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a controversial book that Harriet wrote on her feelings of slavery. The story focuses on the harsh reality of slavery and the main character, Uncle Tom, a suffering black slave whose Christian love and faith overcame enslavement.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, and the second best-selling book of the century after the Bible. 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the first year after it was published. Harriet being a sworn abolitionist, her views and comments written in the book helped start the Abolitionist Cause in the 1850’s. The book also spread many stereotypes about African-Americans, such as Mammy (slang for mother), Pickaninny (slang for a black child), and Uncle Tom (slang for a black servant faithful to his white master or mistress). The impact of the book was so great, that before the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln wanted to meet Harriet. When he finally met her in 1862, he said, “So you’re the little woman that wrote the book that made this big war!”.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, however, had a greater impact in England than it did in America. The first London edition of the book came out in May, 1852, and sold over one million copies. The biggest reason it was more popular in England than America was because of British antipathy to America. One remarkable writer from England explained that "The evil passions which 'Uncle Tom' gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance [of slavery], but national jealousy and national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of America--we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen. Our clergy hate her voluntary system--our Tories hate her democrats--our Whigs hate her parvenus--our Radicals hate her litigiousness, her insolence, and her ambition.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811. Her father was Lyman Beecher, pastor of the Congregational Church in Harriet’s hometown of Litchfield, Connecticut. Harriet’s brother was Henry Ward Beecher who became pastor of Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church. The religious background of Harriet’s family and of New England taught Harriet several traits typical of a New Englander: theological insight, piety, and a desire to improve humanity (Columbia Electronic Library; “Biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe”).
When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he said, “So, this is the little lady who made this big war”(“History.com Staff”2). After Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, there was a rumor that this book led to the Civil War. Uncle Tom’s Cabin turned a lot of people in the North against slavery. The people in the North wanted slavery to end which caused them to fight the South. The most important topic of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is that slavery was worse in the South than in the North. Slavery was worse in the South than in the North because of the hard labor, the freedom policy, and the treatment of the slaves.
Overcoming the death of a loved one can be one of life's most difficult tasks, especially when that loss involves a parent or a child. Author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe grieved over death as both mother and child. When she was only five years old, her mother Roxana Foote Beecher, died of tuberculosis. Later at age 38, she lost her infant son Charley to an outbreak of cholera. Together these two traumatic events amplified her condemnation of slavery and ultimately influenced the writing of one of America's most controversial novels, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Books were a way for people to connect with characters, Uncle Tom's Cabin did this. Most of its readers were found sobbing after reading the heartbreaking but true story of a slave. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a slave narrative written by a woman named, Harriet Beecher Stowe. After the publication, the slavery issue was no longer just the Confederacy's issue, it affected the life of every person in the Union. Stowe brought numerous facto...
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852. This anti-slavery book was the most popular book of the 19th century, and the 2nd most sold book in the century, following only the Bible. It was said that this novel “led to the civil war”, or “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. After one year, 300,000 copies were sold in the U.S., and over 1 million were sold in Britain.
Harriet Beecher Stowe is perhaps best known for her work entitled Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a heart-wrenching story about the treatment and oppression of slaves. Uncle Tom’s Cabin brings to life the evils of slavery and questions the moral and religious values of those who condoned or participated in such a lifestyle. While the factual accuracy of this work has been criticized by advocators of both slavery and abolition it is widely believed that the information contained was drawn from Stowe’s own life experiences (Adams 62). She was the seventh child and youngest daughter in her family. She was only four years old when her mother died, which left the young Harriet Beecher little protection from her "Fatherâs rugged character and doctrinal strictness" (Adams 19). To further complicate matters she was aware that her father preferred she had been a boy. According to Adams, although Stoweâs childhood was not entirely unhappy she would never forget...
Written expression is a beautiful thing and is a freedom Americans are granted when becoming citizens here. Harriet Beecher Stowe is known as “the most important American woman writer of the nineteenth century” (Showalter). Famous for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet published ten novels during her writing career. Stowe began writing in the 1830’s to support her family of seven children and husband, Calvin Stowe. Stowe wrote with a comedic tone, but yet, she also had intention. She was a very bright, intelligent leader, and a visionary of equality amongst all. Stowe lead in a different way, she made history through her writing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Despite writing
...away slaves. Harriet Beecher Stowe published a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was the most influential document of the abolitionist literature. The book showed emotions of slaves that were treated cruelly by Uncle Tom. Although abolitionism was dividing both sides knew the amount of damage slavery was doing by dividing America. They knew slavery had to be extinguished.
Frederick Douglass's Narrative, first published in 1845, is an enlightening and incendiary text. Born into slavery, Douglass became the preeminent spokesman for his people during his life; his narrative is an unparalleled account of the inhumane effects of slavery and Douglass's own triumph over it. His use of vivid language depicts violence against slaves, his personal insights into the dynamics between slaves and slaveholders, and his naming of specific persons and places made his book an indictment against a society that continued to accept slavery as a social and economic institution. Like Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery, and in 1853 she published Letter from a Fugitive Slave, now recognized as one of the most comprehensive antebellum slave narratives written by an African-American woman. Jacobs's account broke the silence on the exploitation of African American female slaves.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut into a renowned religious family that did more to
The Effective Story in Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe, a northern abolitionist, published her best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin contracts the many different attitudes that southerners as well as northerners shared towards slavery. Generally, it shows the evils of slavery and the cruelty and inhumanity of the peculiar institution, in particular how masters treat their slaves and how families are torn apart because of slavery. The novel centers around a pious slave, Uncle Tom, and how he is sold over and over again. It shows the different attitudes that Tom’s masters share about slavery, and how their slaves should be treat.
Even today, with literature constantly crossing more lines and becoming more shocking, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin remains one of the most scandalous, controversial, and powerful literary works ever spilled onto a set of blank pages. Not only does this novel examine the attitudes of white nineteenth-century society toward slavery, but it introduces us to the hearts, minds and souls of several remarkable and unprecedented characters.
In 1962, Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe. According to legend, he said, “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started this Great War” (Harriet Beecher Stowe Center). Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a controversial novel written about slavery during the 1800s, sparked many of the feelings that would eventually escalate into causing the bloodiest war America had ever seen.
Reaction to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. “So this is the little lady who made this big war.” Abraham Lincoln’s legendary comment upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe demonstrates the significant place her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, holds in American history. Published in book form in 1852, the novel quickly became a national bestseller and stirred up strong emotions in both the North and South. The context in which Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written, therefore, is just as significant as the actual content.
Stowe, Harriet B, and Ann Douglas. Uncle Tom's Cabin: Or, Life Among the Lowly. New York, N.Y: