Uncle Tom’s Cabin
By Alexa Wilson
The War on Slavery
Introduction and Thesis
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin has sold over 300,000 copies within the first year. Many say that Harriet Beecher Stowe’s story was what sparked the Civil War. Through this book, readers realized the horrors of slavery in the South and what the slaves went through. The book, based on real life accounts, changed America forever.
About the Author
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on June 14, 1811 and had two siblings, Harry and Catherine. Her father was a Congregational minister but her mother died when Harriet was about five years old. “Later, in 1824, she attended Catherine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary, which exposed young women to many of the same courses available in men’s academics.” (Michals) After she graduated, Harriet Beecher Stowe became a teacher at the school and later moved with her father to Cincinnati, Ohio where he took the position of president at Lane Seminary. In 1833, she published her first book called Primary Geography. Three years later, she married her husband, Calvin Stone, who was a professor at the seminary. “he encouraged her writing, they had seven children, and weathered financial and other problems during their decades-long union.” (Michals) Stowe later wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin due to the loss of her son and the passing of of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. “The turning point in Stowe’s personal and literary life came in 1849, when her son died in a cholera epidemic that claimed nearly 3000 lives in her region.” (Michals) The loss of her son made her think of the mothers who lost their children because they were sold off into slavery. Then in 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published and put on the market.
About the Book
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was based off Josiah Henson. “Henson was born into slavery in Maryland 1787.” (Elliott) Later, he found his way to Ontario and created a school for people who were slaves and became a pastor of a church up there. Henson’s biography tells us that he remembers his father one day coming home bloody. He goes on and tells us that his father had been whipped and had his ear cut off because his father beat up a white man. The story that Beecher Stowe wrote was about a slave named Uncle Tom who saves the life a little girl named Eva while traveling on a boat to be auctioned in New Orleans. Little Eva’s father, grateful that Tom saved his daughter, buys Tom. He and little Eva became friends until Eva became sick and made a request to her father to release all of the slaves they owned. Her father was about to release them until he was killed by a man named Simon Legree. Legree is not a kind owner, and has Tom whipped because he would not tell Legree where the runaway slaves ran to. “Tom maintains a steadfastly Christian attitude towards his own suffering, and Stowe imbues Tom’s death with echos of Christ’s.” (brittanica.com) Stowe wrote this book basing the details on the events that actually happened with the help from former slaves who ran away and she later published, A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1853 proving her representation of slavery.
The Legacy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Many say that when President Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” This may or may not have been true, but we will never know. The story that Stowe created was one that opened the eyes of many and could have possibly been the spark that started the Civil War. “Across the north, readers became acutely aware of the horrors of slavery on a far more personal level than ever before.” (ushistory.org) People in the south thought the book was outlandish and was obnoxious and then was eventually banned in the South. Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold about 300,000 copies in the first year it was published, but became a greater hit in Great Britian. “Ten years after the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the British people made it difficult for its government to support the Confederacy, even though there were strong economic ties to the South.” (ushistory.org) Even after Harriet Beecher Stowe had died, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was still a popular book. Her book became films between 1903–1927 and around ten films were created based on Harriet Stowe’s book. Her book changed history and influenced those who read it and is still influencing those who are reading it today.
Works Cited
Elliott, Debbie, and Josiah Henson. “A Visit to the Real ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’.” NPR, NPR, 5 Feb. 2006, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5188487.
“Harriet Beecher Stowe — Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Ushistory.org, Independence Hall Association, www.ushistory.org/us/28d.asp.
Michals, Debra. “Harriet Beecher Stowe.” National Women’s History Museum, www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-beecher-stowe.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/Uncle-Toms-Cabin.
