HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
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Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Photo by Matthew Brady. Courtesy of The Harriet Beecher Stowe
Center, Hartford, Connecticut.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in 1811 and is probably the most
famous of the Beecher daughters. She was given the approved religious
education of the time, but was troubled her entire life with doubt
and preoccupied with the problem of religion. It was not until the
age of thirteen that Harriet was sent to Hartford, Connecticut,
to attend a school for girls. Her closest confidant was her brother
Henry, and throughout their lives they united in speaking out against
the evils of slavery. While in Cincinnati with her family, she taught
at her sister Catherine's school, and wrote for the Western Monthly
Magazine. Her marriage in 1836 ended her literary pursuits until
1852. Her husband encouraged her to write, and her abolitionist
sentiments became the subject of Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among
the Lowly. The success of the book was astounding. For nearly
thirty years she wrote a book a year. She died in 1896.
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Title page from Woman in Sacred
History; a series of sketches drawn from scriptural, historical
and legendary sources by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1873).
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Title page from House and Home
Papers (1864).
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"Uncle Tom's Cabin" and influences on American culture
American fiction up to the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin was based on the fantasies of writers like
Poe and Irving, and the romantic visions of authors such as James
Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne and Melville. In addition, the women
publishing in the first half of the nineteenth century wrote sentimental
novels appealing to their female audience. Milton Rugoff says: "At
her best, Harriet Beecher Stowe was the first American realist of
any consequence and the first to use fiction for a profound criticism
of American society, especially its failure to live up to promises
of democracy."
Reaction to the publication of the book took many forms and inspired
plays, music, art, and anti-Tom literature. In 1852 there was actually
a "Tom-mania" with Americans singing or playing Uncle
Tom Songs and soon a stage version was produced with performances
in New York, Boston and London.
The book received international recognition as a plea for the moral
cause of abolition and is recognized today as a landmark in the
history of American culture as well as American literature.
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The Death of St. Clare (Little
Eva's father). Music, published in Boston in 1852. Based
upon a scene in Uncle Tom's Cabin. The poetry by M.A.
Collier.
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Poor Uncle Tom. Song and
Chorus as sung by Wood's Minstrels at Minstrel Hall, New York.
New York c. 1852.
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