97-528: Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe . Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. , and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War". Stowe, a Connecticut -born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary ,
194-432: A "critique of American society far more devastating than any delivered by better-known critics such as Hawthorne and Melville ." Uncle Tom's Cabin has exerted an influence equaled by few other novels in history. Upon publication, Uncle Tom's Cabin ignited a firestorm of protest from defenders of slavery (who created a number of books in response to the novel) while the book elicited praise from abolitionists. The novel
291-508: A challenge to Christianity itself." George Orwell in his essay " Good Bad Books ", first published in Tribune in November 1945, claims that "perhaps the supreme example of the 'good bad' book is Uncle Tom's Cabin . It is an unintentionally ludicrous book, full of preposterous melodramatic incidents; it is also deeply moving and essentially true; it is hard to say which quality outweighs
388-563: A committed abolitionist . He first worked, in 1833, at convincing the other students at Lane that immediatism, ending slavery completely and immediately, was the only solution and what God wanted. Successful, he next, with the Tappans' collaboration, sought to bring immediatism to a larger audience. He announced that the public was invited to a series of public debates, over 18 evenings in February 1834, on abolition versus colonization. In fact,
485-762: A doctor urged him to travel, he started an itinerant lecture series on mnemonics , traveling for three years throughout the United States, including the South, where he saw slavery first-hand. In 1825 Weld moved with his family to Fabius , in upstate New York . At the time of the Weld-Grimké marriage they were living in Manlius, New York . Weld then (1825) attended classes at Hamilton College in Clinton, Oneida County, New York , though he did not enroll as
582-696: A dying child." Another reader is described as obsessing on the book at all hours and having considered renaming her daughter Eva. Evidently the death of Little Eva affected a lot of people at that time, because in 1852, 300 baby girls in Boston alone were given that name. Despite this positive reaction from readers, for decades literary critics dismissed the style found in Uncle Tom's Cabin and other sentimental novels because these books were written by women and so prominently featured what one critic called "women's sloppy emotions". Another literary critic said that had
679-662: A farm in Belleville, New Jersey , where Weld ran a school. In June 1840, the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London denied seats to Lucretia Mott and other women, mobilizing them to fight for women's rights. This led to a split in the U.S. abolitionist movement between the nonviolent (but wanting it immediately) "moral suasion" of William Lloyd Garrison and his American Anti-Slavery Society , which linked abolition with women's rights, and Weld,
776-600: A large debt to it. Stowe, a Connecticut -born teacher at the Hartford Female Seminary and an active abolitionist, wrote the novel as a response to the passage, in 1850, of the second Fugitive Slave Act . Much of the book was composed at her house in Brunswick, Maine , where her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe , taught at his alma mater , Bowdoin College . Stowe was partly inspired to create Uncle Tom's Cabin by
873-447: A large role in Uncle Tom's Cabin —and because of Stowe's frequent use of direct authorial interjections on religion and faith—the novel often takes the "form of a sermon". Over the years scholars have postulated a number of theories about what Stowe was trying to say with the novel (aside from the major theme of condemning slavery). For example, as an ardent Christian and active abolitionist, Stowe placed many of her religious beliefs into
970-515: A letter that Stowe wrote to her husband a few hours after meeting with Lincoln no mention of this comment was made. Many writers have also credited the novel with focusing Northern anger at the injustices of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law and helping to fuel the abolitionist movement. Union general and politician James Baird Weaver said that the book convinced him to become active in the abolitionist movement. Frederick Douglass
1067-438: A more immediate, considerable and dramatic world-influence than any other book ever printed." Leo Tolstoy claimed that Uncle Tom's Cabin was a greater work than any play written by Shakespeare because it flowed from the love of God and man. In the 20th century, a number of writers attacked Uncle Tom's Cabin not only for the stereotypes the novel had created about African-Americans but also because of "the utter disdain of
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#17327832662351164-526: A new spirit of Black resistance. Anti-slavery Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.150 via cp1114 cp1114, Varnish XID 913422348 Upstream caches: cp1114 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:41:06 GMT Theodore Dwight Weld Theodore Dwight Weld (November 23, 1803 – February 3, 1895)
1261-527: A note of apology to her mistress. She later makes a dangerous crossing over the ice of the Ohio River to escape her pursuers. As Tom is sold, Mr. Haley takes him to a riverboat on the Mississippi River and from there Tom is to be transported to a slave market. While on board, Tom meets Eva, an angelic little white girl. They quickly become friends. Eva falls into the river and Tom dives into
1358-504: A number of negative stereotypes about black people , including that of the namesake character " Uncle Tom ". The term came to be associated with an excessively subservient person. These later associations with Uncle Tom's Cabin have, to an extent, overshadowed the historical effects of the book as a "vital antislavery tool". Nonetheless, the novel remains a "landmark" in protest literature, with later books such as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson owing
1455-492: A personal influence even more fascinating than his eloquence. I state the impression which I had of him as a boy, and it may seem extravagant, but I have seen crowds of bearded men held spell-bound by his power for hours together, and for twenty evenings in succession. In an editorial comment in The Liberator , presumably by its editor Garrison , "Weld is destined to be one of the great men not of America merely, but of
1552-565: A pilot program, staying at the farmhouse of founder George Washington Gale in Western, New York , working in exchange for instruction. While at the Oneida Institute, where he was in charge of the cow-milking operation, he would spend two weeks at a time traveling about, lecturing on the virtues of manual labor, temperance , and moral reform. "Weld...had both the stamina and charisma to hold listeners spellbound for three hours." As
1649-480: A result, by 1831 he had become a "well known citizen" of Oneida County, according to a letter of Joseph Swan published in the Utica Elucidator . Weld was described thus by James Fairchild , who knew him from when they were students together at Oberlin (of which Fairchild would later be President): Among these students was Theodore D. Weld, a young man of surpassing eloquence and logical powers, and of
1746-455: A revival of interest in the early 1960s. In the Chinese communist view of the book, Uncle Tom was interpreted as having been betrayed by his "Christian consciousness." In 1961, Sun Weishi directed a stage play adaptation of the book. The revival of interest in Uncle Tom's Cabin intersected with the translation and popularization of works by W.E.B. Du Bois , who was viewed as having developed
1843-431: A revolter from the enemy... She taught us how to prove that democrats may be tyrants, that an aristocracy of caste is more oppressive than an aristocracy of station... Our pity for the victim is swallowed up by our hatred of the tyrant. Stowe sent a copy of the book to Charles Dickens , who wrote her in response: "I have read your book with the deepest interest and sympathy, and admire, more than I can express to you, both
1940-558: A slave hunter hired by Mr. Haley. Eventually Loker and his men trap Eliza and her family, causing George to shoot him in the side. Worried that Loker may die, Eliza convinces George to bring the slave hunter to a nearby Quaker settlement for medical treatment. Back in New Orleans , St. Clare debates slavery with his Northern cousin Ophelia who, while opposing slavery, is prejudiced against black people. St. Clare, however, believes he
2037-481: A student and does not appear in the College's published lists of students. About 1825 he stayed at the College in the suite of tutor William Kirkland, and not only attended classes but was "something of a leader among the students". The famous evangelist Charles Grandison Finney was based in Oneida County, and according to him, Weld "held a very prominent place among the students of Hamilton College, and had
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#17327832662352134-513: A subtheme, this scene could foreshadow future events that put alcohol in a bad light. Because Stowe saw motherhood as the "ethical and structural model for all of American life" and also believed that only women had the moral authority to save the United States from the demon of slavery, another major theme of Uncle Tom's Cabin is the moral power and sanctity of women. Through characters like Eliza, who escapes from slavery to save her young son (and eventually reunites her entire family), or Eva, who
2231-475: A very great influence." He described himself as "educated at Hamilton College." However, Hamilton turned down his proposal of a manual labor program. While a student Weld attended some of Finney's many revivals , for he became Finney's disciple. In Utica, intellectual capital of western New York, center of abolitionism, and county seat of Oneida County , he met and became a good friend of Charles Stuart , an early abolitionist, who at that time (1822–1829)
2328-451: A writing style that evoked a reader's sympathy and emotion. Uncle Tom's Cabin has been called a "representative" example of a sentimental novel. The power in this type of writing can be seen in the reaction of contemporary readers. Georgiana May, a friend of Stowe's, wrote a letter to the author, saying: "I was up last night long after one o'clock, reading and finishing Uncle Tom's Cabin . I could not leave it any more than I could have left
2425-631: Is Dinah, who operates on passion. During the course of the novel Ophelia is transformed, just as the Republican Party (three years later) proclaimed that the North must transform itself and stand up for its antislavery principles. Feminist theory can also be seen at play in Stowe's book, with the novel as a critique of the patriarchal nature of slavery. For Stowe, blood relations rather than paternalistic relations between masters and slaves formed
2522-445: Is considered an influential "landmark" of protest literature. Uncle Tom's Cabin had an "incalculable" impact on the 19th-century world and captured the imagination of many Americans. In a likely apocryphal story that alludes to the novel's impact, when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862 he supposedly commented, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." Historians are undecided if Lincoln actually said this line, and in
2619-414: Is dominated by a single theme: the evil and immorality of slavery. While Stowe weaves other subthemes throughout her text, such as the moral authority of motherhood and the power of Christian love, she emphasizes the connections between these and the horrors of slavery. Stowe sometimes changed the story's voice so she could give a " homily " on the destructive nature of slavery (such as when a white woman on
2716-477: Is not biased, even though he is a slave owner. In an attempt to show Ophelia that her prejudiced views against black people are wrong, St. Clare purchases Topsy, a young black slave, and asks Ophelia to educate her. After Tom has lived with the St. Clares for two years, Eva grows very ill. Before she dies she experiences a vision of heaven , which she shares with the people around her. As a result of her death and vision,
2813-451: Is seen as the "ideal Christian", Stowe shows how she believed women could save those around them from even the worst injustices. Though later critics have noted that Stowe's female characters are often domestic clichés instead of realistic women, Stowe's novel "reaffirmed the importance of women's influence" and helped pave the way for the women's rights movement in the following decades. Stowe's puritanical religious beliefs show up in
2910-437: Is slavery?", that "I never heard so grand & beautiful an exposition of the dignity & nobility of man in my life". His reputation as a speaker had reached New York, and in 1831, at the age of 28, Weld was called there by the philanthropists Lewis and Arthur Tappan . He declined their offer of a ministerial position, saying he felt himself unprepared. Since he was "a living, breathing, and eloquently-speaking exhibit of
3007-464: Is taken to rural Louisiana with other new slaves including Emmeline, whom Simon Legree has purchased to use as a sex slave . Legree begins to hate Tom when Tom refuses Legree's order to whip his fellow slave. Legree beats Tom viciously and resolves to crush his new slave's faith in God . Despite Legree's cruelty, Tom refuses to stop reading his Bible and comforting the other slaves as best he can. While at
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3104-429: Is tested by the hardships of the plantation. He has two visions, one of Jesus and one of Eva, which renew his resolve to remain a faithful Christian, even unto death. He encourages Cassy to escape, which she does, taking Emmeline with her. When Tom refuses to tell Legree where Cassy and Emmeline have gone, Legree orders his overseers to kill Tom. As Tom is dying, he forgives the overseers who savagely beat him. Humbled by
3201-605: The Grimké sisters . "Public awareness of abolition [in New York State] reached its peak with the activities of Theodore Weld from February to early July, 1836." In 1836, Weld discontinued lecturing when he lost his voice, and was appointed editor of its books and pamphlets by the American Anti-Slavery Society . Among the books he edited was James Thome and J. Horace Kimball 's Emancipation in
3298-579: The slave narrative The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849). Henson , a formerly enslaved black man, had lived and worked on a 3,700-acre (15 km) plantation in North Bethesda, Maryland , owned by Isaac Riley. Henson escaped slavery in 1830 by fleeing to the Province of Upper Canada (now Ontario ), where he helped other fugitive slaves settle and become self-sufficient. Stowe
3395-702: The Grimké sisters are at the Clements Library , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, Michigan . Additional letters were published in the two-volume set Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimké Weld and Sarah Grimké 1822-1844 , published by Appleton with funding of the American Historical Association / Albert J. Beveridge Memorial Fund. The original letters were held at the time of publication by Dr. L.D.H. Weld, Smith Collection at Syracuse University, Garrison collection at
3492-628: The Seminary's summer vacation of 1834, some of the students started teaching classes for, and in other ways working to help, the 1500 free African Americans of Cincinnati, with whom the students mixed freely. Given the pro-slavery sentiment in Cincinnati, many found his behavior unacceptable. After rumored threats of violence against the Seminary, the trustees passed rules abolishing the seminary's colonization and abolition societies and forbidding any further discussion of slavery, even at mealtimes. Weld
3589-705: The Tappan brothers, and other "pragmatic" (gradualist) abolitionists, who formed the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFASS) and entered politics through the anti-slavery Liberty Party (ancestor of the Free-Soil Party and Republican Party ), founded by James Birney , their U.S. presidential candidate in 1840 and 1844, who also founded the National Anti-Slavery Society. In 1841–43, Weld relocated to Washington, D.C., to direct
3686-509: The Tom character by the black community". These writers included Richard Wright with his collection Uncle Tom's Children (1938) and Chester Himes with his 1943 short story "Heaven Has Changed". Ralph Ellison also critiqued the book with his 1952 novel Invisible Man , with Ellison figuratively killing Uncle Tom in the opening chapter. In 1945 James Baldwin published his influential and infamous critical essay "Everbody's Protest Novel". In
3783-571: The United States). By 1857, the novel had been translated into 20 languages. Translator Lin Shu published the first Chinese translation in 1901, which was also the first American novel translated into that language. The book opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby facing the loss of his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife Emily Shelby believe that they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise
3880-589: The West Indies ;: a six months' tour in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, in the year 1837 . In 1838, Weld married Angelina Grimké . He was a strong abolitionist and women's rights advocate; at the marriage there were two ministers, one white and one black. He renounced any power or legal authority over his wife, other than that produced by love. Two former slaves of the Grimkés' father were among
3977-462: The abolitionist movement argued for conventional, aggressive masculine action. All the men in Stowe's novel are representations of either one kind of man or the other. Uncle Tom's Cabin is written in the sentimental and melodramatic style common to 19th-century sentimental novels and domestic fiction (also called women's fiction). These genres were the most popular novels of Stowe's time and were "written by, for, and about women" along with featuring
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4074-452: The basis of families. Moreover, Stowe viewed national solidarity as an extension of a person's family, thus feelings of nationality stemmed from possessing a shared race. Consequently, she advocated African colonization for freed slaves and not amalgamation into American society. The book has also been seen as an attempt to redefine masculinity as a necessary step toward the abolition of slavery. In this view, abolitionists had begun to resist
4171-462: The book back in print in November 1862. After that demand began to yet again increase. Houghton Mifflin Company acquired the rights from Ticknor in 1878. In 1879, a new edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin was released, repackaging the novel as an "American classic". Through the 1880s until its copyright expired, the book served as a mainstay and reliable source of income for Houghton Mifflin. By the end of
4268-537: The book in "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History." Tompkins praised the style so many other critics had dismissed, writing that sentimental novels showed how women's emotions had the power to change the world for the better. She also said that the popular domestic novels of the 19th century, including Uncle Tom's Cabin , were remarkable for their "intellectual complexity, ambition, and resourcefulness"; and that Uncle Tom's Cabin offers
4365-493: The book's historical impact as a "vital antislavery tool". After the turn of the millennium, scholars such as Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Hollis Robbins have re-examined Uncle Tom's Cabin in what has been called a "serious attempt to resurrect it as both a central document in American race relations and a significant moral and political exploration of the character of those relations." In China, Uncle Tom's Cabin experienced
4462-674: The calendar year 1832. His 100-page report on his activities, accompanied by 20 pages of letters received, is dated January 10, 1833. It received a review of 21 pages in the Quarterly Christian Spectator, and an abridgement was soon published. In it he states that "In prosecuting the business of my agency, I have traveled during the year four thousand five hundred and seventy-five miles [7,364 km]; in public conveyances [boat and stagecoach], 2,630 [4,230 km]; on horseback, 1,800 [2,900 km]; on foot, 145 [233 km]. I have made two hundred and thirty-six public addresses." He
4559-424: The character of the man they have killed, both men become Christians. George Shelby, Arthur Shelby's son, arrives to buy Tom's freedom, but Tom dies shortly after they meet. On their boat ride to freedom, Cassy and Emmeline meet George Harris' sister Madame de Thoux and accompany her to Canada. Madame de Thoux and George Harris were separated in their childhood. Cassy discovers that Eliza is her long-lost daughter who
4656-657: The content of his speeches or his letters from the field to appear in print at all. Weld was born in Hampton, Connecticut , the son and grandson of Congregational ministers. He was descended from Thomas Welde , one of the original trustees of Harvard College . His mother owned slaves. At age 14 Weld took over his father's hundred-acre (forty-hectare) farm near Hartford, Connecticut, to earn money to study at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts , attending from 1820 to 1822, when failing eyesight caused him to leave. After
4753-561: The debates were not debates at all, as no one spoke in favor of colonization. They were instead presentations of the horrors of American slavery, together with an exposé of the inadequacy of the American Colonization Society 's project of helping free black people migrate to Africa and its intent to protect, rather than eliminate, slavery. At the end, the audience's views were highly supportive of immediate abolition. The debates were then local events. However, during
4850-559: The defiant George Harris? Stowe's solution was similar to Ralph Waldo Emerson 's: God's will would be followed if each person sincerely examined his principles and acted on them. Scholars have also seen the novel as expressing the values and ideas of the Free Will Movement . In this view, the character of George Harris embodies the principles of free labor, and the complex character of Ophelia represents those Northerners who condoned compromise with slavery. In contrast to Ophelia
4947-484: The dominant theme. One example of this is when Augustine St. Clare is killed, he attempted to stop a brawl between two inebriated men in a cafe and was stabbed. Another example is the death of Prue, who was whipped to death for being drunk on a consistent basis; however, her reasons for doing so is due to the loss of her baby. In the opening of the novel, the fates of Eliza and her son are being discussed between slave owners over wine. Considering that Stowe intended this to be
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#17327832662355044-409: The emerging plot." In response to these criticisms, in 1853 Stowe published A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin , an attempt to document the veracity of the novel's depiction of slavery. In the book, Stowe discusses each of the major characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin and cites "real life equivalents" to them while also mounting a more "aggressive attack on slavery in the South than the novel itself had". Like
5141-447: The essay, Baldwin described Uncle Tom's Cabin as "a bad novel, having, in its self-righteousness, virtuous sentimentality". He argued that the novel lacked psychological depth, and that Stowe, "was not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer". Edward Rothstein has claimed that Baldwin missed the point and that the purpose of the novel was "to treat slavery not as a political issue but as an individually human one – and ultimately
5238-583: The failure to establish theological instruction at the Oneida Institute. Cincinnati was the logical location. Cincinnati was the focal center of population and commerce in the Ohio valley. During his year as a manual labor agent, Weld scouted land, found the location for, and recruited the faculty for the Lane Seminary , in Cincinnati . He enrolled there as a student in 1833, although he was informally
5335-465: The first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States. Eight printing presses, running incessantly, could barely keep up with the demand. By mid-1853, sales of the book dramatically decreased and Jewett went out of business during the Panic of 1857 . In June 1860, the right to publish Uncle Tom's Cabin passed to the Boston firm Ticknor and Fields , which put
5432-526: The generous feeling which inspired it, and the admirable power with which it is executed." The historian and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote in 1852 that "it is the most valuable addition that America has made to English literature." Charles Francis Adams Sr. , the American ambassador to Britain during the Civil War, argued later that " Uncle Tom's Cabin ; or Life among the Lowly , published in 1852, exercised, largely from fortuitous circumstances,
5529-491: The guests. Weld and Grimké would go on to have three children: Charles, Theodore, and Sarah. Their first home as newlyweds was in Fort Lee, New Jersey , where he, his wife, and her sister researched and co-wrote the very influential 1839 book American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses . Angelina's unmarried older sister Sarah (Angelina's godmother ) resided with them for many years. In 1840, they moved to
5626-463: The head, to the point of telling the trustees whom to hire. He had this power because on his recommendation the Tappans' subventions would continue, or go elsewhere (as they soon did, to Oberlin ). Some of his travel was in slave states . What he saw there, together with what he read in Garrison 's newspaper The Liberator (1831) and book Thoughts on African Colonization (1832), turned him into
5723-585: The latter is regarded as second only to the former in its influence on the antislavery movement. Weld remained dedicated to the abolitionist movement until slavery was ended by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865. According to Lyman Beecher , the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe , Weld was "as eloquent as an angel, and as powerful as thunder." His words were "logic on fire". In 1950, Weld
5820-633: The national campaign for sending antislavery petitions to Congress. He assisted John Quincy Adams when Congress tried him for reading petitions in violation of the gag rule , which stated that slavery could not be discussed in Congress. In early 1853, Weld was offered the position of Director of a school of the Raritan Bay Union at Eagleswood in Perth Amboy, New Jersey . The school accepted students of all races and sexes. In 1862,
5917-685: The needed funds by selling two of them—Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby's maid Eliza—to Mr. Haley, a coarse slave trader. Emily Shelby is averse to this idea because she had promised her maid that her child would never be sold; Emily's son, George Shelby, hates to see Tom go because he sees the man as his friend and mentor. When Eliza overhears Mr. and Mrs. Shelby discussing plans to sell Tom and Harry, Eliza determines to run away with her son. The novel states that Eliza made this decision because she fears losing her only surviving child (she had already miscarried two children). Eliza departs that night, leaving
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#17327832662356014-635: The nineteenth century, the novel was widely available in a large number of editions and in the United States it became the second best-selling book of that century after the Bible. Uncle Tom's Cabin sold equally well in Britain; the first London edition appeared in May 1852 and sold 200,000 copies. In a few years, over 1.5 million copies of the book were in circulation in Britain, although most of these were infringing copies (a similar situation occurred in
6111-416: The novel not been about slavery, "it would be just another sentimental novel", and another described the book as "primarily a derivative piece of hack work". In The Literary History of the United States , George F. Whicher called Uncle Tom's Cabin " Sunday-school fiction", full of "broadly conceived melodrama, humor, and pathos". In 1985 Jane Tompkins expressed a different view with her famous defense of
6208-428: The novel's final, overarching theme—the exploration of the nature of Christian love and how she feels Christian theology is fundamentally incompatible with slavery. This theme is most evident when Tom urges St. Clare to "look away to Jesus" after the death of St. Clare's beloved daughter Eva. After Tom dies, George Shelby eulogizes Tom by saying, "What a thing it is to be a Christian." Because Christian themes play such
6305-683: The novel's release, with the book also roundly criticized by slavery supporters. Southern novelist William Gilmore Simms declared the work utterly false while also calling it slanderous. Reactions ranged from a bookseller in Mobile, Alabama , being forced to leave town for selling the novel to threatening letters sent to Stowe (including a package containing a slave's severed ear). Many Southern writers, like Simms, soon wrote their own books in opposition to Stowe's novel. Some critics highlighted Stowe's paucity of life-experience relating to Southern life, saying that it led her to create inaccurate descriptions of
6402-472: The novel, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin was a best-seller, but although Stowe claimed A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin documented her previously consulted sources, she actually read many of the cited works only after the publication of her novel. Uncle Tom's Cabin also created great interest in the United Kingdom. The first London edition appeared in May 1852 and sold 200,000 copies. Some of this interest
6499-416: The novel. Some scholars have stated that Stowe saw her novel as offering a solution to the moral and political dilemma that troubled many slavery opponents: whether engaging in prohibited behavior was justified in opposing evil. Was the use of violence to oppose the violence of slavery and the breaking of proslavery laws morally defensible? Which of Stowe's characters should be emulated, the passive Uncle Tom or
6596-417: The other characters resolve to change their lives, Ophelia promising to throw off her personal prejudices against blacks, Topsy saying she will better herself, and St. Clare pledging to free Tom. Before St. Clare can follow through on his pledge, he dies after being stabbed outside a tavern. His wife reneges on her late husband's vow and sells Tom at auction to a vicious plantation owner named Simon Legree. Tom
6693-404: The other." But he concludes "I would back Uncle Tom's Cabin to outlive the complete works of Virginia Woolf or George Moore , though I know of no strictly literary test which would show where the superiority lies." The negative associations related to Uncle Tom's Cabin , in particular how the novel and associated plays created and popularized racial stereotypes , have to some extent obscured
6790-648: The plantation, Tom meets Cassy, another slave whom Legree used as a sex slave. Cassy tells her story to Tom. She was previously separated from her son and daughter when they were sold. She became pregnant again but killed the child because she could not tolerate having another child separated from her. Tom Loker, changed after being healed by the Quakers, returns to the story. He has helped George, Eliza, and Harry enter Canada from Lake Erie and become free. In Louisiana, Uncle Tom almost succumbs to hopelessness as his faith in God
6887-483: The region. For instance, she had never been to a Southern plantation. Stowe always said she based the characters of her book on stories she was told by runaway slaves in Cincinnati. It is reported that "She observed firsthand several incidents which galvanized her to write [the] famous anti-slavery novel. Scenes she observed on the Ohio River, including seeing a husband and wife being sold apart, as well as newspaper and magazine accounts and interviews, contributed material to
6984-574: The results of manual-labor-with-study," the brothers then created, so as to employ Weld, the Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions [non-religious schools], which promptly hired him as its "general agent" and sent him on a factfinding and speaking tour. (The Society never carried out any activities except hiring Weld, hosting some of his lectures, and publishing his report.) Weld carried out this commission during
7081-487: The river to save her life. Being grateful to Tom, Eva's father Augustine St. Clare buys him from Haley and takes him with the family to their home in New Orleans. Tom and Eva begin to relate to one another because of the deep Christian faith they both share. During Eliza's escape, she meets up with her husband George Harris, who had run away previously. They decide to attempt to reach Canada but are tracked by Tom Loker,
7178-437: The salary he was offered by another institution." Starting in 1834, Weld was an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society , recruiting and training people to work for the cause, making converts of James G. Birney , Harriet Beecher Stowe , and Henry Ward Beecher . Weld became one of the leaders of the antislavery movement, working with the Tappan brothers, New York philanthropists James G. Birney and Gamaliel Bailey , and
7275-497: The same basis as whites, and that the trustees not be able to fire faculty for any or no reason. The fired professor was hired by Oberlin, and Mahan became its first president. Weld declined an appointment at Oberlin as professor of theology, saying abolitionism was a higher priority; he directed Shipperd to Charles Finney. Instead, he took a position as agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society for Ohio. "He has, with characteristic disinterestedness, accepted this agency at one half
7372-513: The school having closed, they moved to Perth Amboy . In 1864 they moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts , where Weld helped open another school, this one in Lexington, Massachusetts , dedicated to the same principles. Here, Weld had "charge of Conversation, Composition, and English Literature", and Angelina taught history. The school burned in 1867, and the Welds were then in retirement. Weld
7469-481: The second best-selling book of the 19th century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The influence attributed to the book was so great that a likely apocryphal story arose of Abraham Lincoln meeting Stowe at the start of the Civil War and declaring, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." The book and the plays it inspired helped popularize
7566-465: The steamboat carrying Tom further south states, "The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages of feelings and affections—the separating of families, for example."). One way Stowe showed the evil of slavery was how this "peculiar institution" forcibly separated families from each other. One of the subthemes presented in the novel is temperance . Stowe made it somewhat subtle and in some cases she wove it into events that would also support
7663-672: The story significantly, however, and it was instantly popular, such that protests were sent to the Era office when she missed an issue. The final installment was released in the April 1, 1852, issue of Era . Stowe arranged for the story's copyright to be registered with the United States District Court for the District of Maine . She renewed her copyright in 1879 and the work entered the public domain on May 12, 1893. While
7760-446: The story was still being serialized, the publisher John P. Jewett contracted with Stowe to turn Uncle Tom's Cabin into a book. Convinced the book would be popular, Jewett made the unusual decision (for the time) to have six full-page illustrations by Hammatt Billings engraved for the first printing. Published in book form on March 20, 1852, the novel sold 3,000 copies on that day alone, and soon sold out its complete print run. In
7857-425: The vision of aggressive and dominant men that the conquest and colonization of the early 19th century had fostered. To change the notion of manhood so that men could oppose slavery without jeopardizing their self-image or their standing in society, some abolitionists drew on principles of women's suffrage and Christianity as well as passivism, and praised men for cooperation, compassion, and civic spirit. Others within
7954-523: The work of black writers to compose her novel" and chastised Stowe for her "apparent support of black colonization to Africa." Martin was "one of the most out-spoken black critics" of Uncle Tom's Cabin at the time and later wrote Blake; or the Huts of America , a novel where an African American "chooses violent rebellion over Tom's resignation." White people in the American South were outraged at
8051-419: The world. His mind is full of strength, proportion, beauty, and majesty. ...[In his writing] there is indubitable evidence of intellectual grandeur and moral power." In his reminiscences of that period Dr. Beecher observed: Weld was a genius. ...In the estimation of the class, he was president. He took the lead of the whole institution. The young men had, many of them, been under his care, and they thought he
8148-480: Was "convinced both of the social uses of the novel and of Stowe's humanitarianism" and heavily promoted the novel in his newspaper during the book's initial release. Though Douglass said Uncle Tom's Cabin was "a work of marvelous depth and power," he also published criticism of the novel, most prominently by Martin Delany . In a series of letters in the paper, Delany accused Stowe of "borrowing (and thus profiting) from
8245-446: Was a god. We never quarreled, however. In a completely different forum, William Garrison said that in a convention of antislavery "agents", who travelled from town to town giving abolitionist lectures and setting up new local anti-slavery societies, "Weld was the central luminary around which they all revolved". His future wife Angelina Grimké said in 1836, when she first laid eyes on him and heard him speak for two hours on "What
8342-514: Was also inspired by the posthumous biography of Phebe Ann Jacobs , a devout Congregationalist of Brunswick, Maine . Born on a slave plantation in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey , Jacobs was enslaved for most of her life, including by the president of Bowdoin College. In her final years, Jacobs lived as a free woman, laundering clothes for Bowdoin students. She achieved respect from her community due to her devout religious beliefs, and her funeral
8439-533: Was described as being "totally unknown to most Americans". His obscurity was of his own choosing. Weld would never accept an office of authority or honor in any antislavery organization. He refused to speak at antislavery conventions or anniversaries, or even to attend them if he could avoid it. He shunned the cities, and chose to labor in the country districts, where newspapers were few, and his activities were seldom reported except by abolition journals. His writings were published anonymously, and he would seldom allow
8536-659: Was due to anti-Americanism in Britain. As English lawyer Nassau William Senior argued, "The evil passions which Uncle Tom gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance, 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. All parties hailed Mrs. Stowe as
8633-582: Was head of the Utica Academy . They spent several years as members of Finney's "holy band". In the winter of 1827, he and his brother Charles worked on a whaling vessel in Labrador . Later in 1827, abandoning Hamilton on Stuart's recommendation, he enrolled in the new Oneida Institute of Science and Industry in nearby Whitesboro, New York , the most abolitionist school in the country, his fees paid for him by Stuart, after first participating in
8730-527: Was intended to not only verify Stowe's claims about slavery but also point readers to the many "publicly available documents" detailing the horrors of slavery. Uncle Tom's Cabin first appeared as a 40-week serial in The National Era , an abolitionist periodical, starting with the June 5, 1851, issue. It was originally intended as a shorter narrative that would run for only a few weeks. Stowe expanded
8827-517: Was nearly killed when a high river swept away the coach he was in. Weld had also been commissioned to find a site for a great national manual labor institution where training for the western ministry could be provided for poor but earnest young men who had dedicated their lives to the home missionary cause in the "vast valley of the Mississippi." Such an institution would undoubtedly attract many of Weld's associates who had been disappointed in
8924-402: Was one of the architects of the American abolitionist movement during its formative years from 1830 to 1844, playing a role as writer, editor, speaker, and organizer. He is best known for his co-authorship of the authoritative compendium American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses , published in 1839. Harriet Beecher Stowe partly based Uncle Tom’s Cabin on Weld's text;
9021-418: Was part of the religious Beecher family and an active abolitionist . She wrote the sentimental novel to depict the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love could overcome slavery. The novel focuses on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of the other characters revolve. In the United States, Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel and
9118-550: Was sold as a child. Now that their family is together again, they travel to France and eventually Liberia , the African nation created for former American slaves. George Shelby returns to the Kentucky farm, where after his father's death, he frees all his slaves. George Shelby urges them to remember Tom's sacrifice every time they look at his cabin. He decides to lead a pious Christian life just as Uncle Tom did. Uncle Tom's Cabin
9215-639: Was the son of Ludovicus Weld and Elizabeth (Clark) Weld. His brother Ezra Greenleaf Weld , a famous daguerreotype photographer, was also involved with the abolitionist movement (see Fugitive Slave Convention ). A member of the Weld family of New England , Weld shares a common ancestry with Bill Weld , Tuesday Weld , and others. This branch of the family never achieved the wealth of their Boston -based kin. Weld died at his home in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, aged 91, on February 3, 1895. Papers of Weld and
9312-533: Was threatened with expulsion. A professor was fired. What happened was the mass resignation of almost all of Lane's student body, along with a sympathetic trustee, Asa Mahan . Later known as the Lane Rebels , they enrolled at the new Oberlin Collegiate Institute , insisting as conditions of their enrollment that they be free to discuss any topic ( academic freedom ), that Oberlin admit blacks on
9409-415: Was widely attended. Another source Stowe used as research for Uncle Tom's Cabin was American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses , a volume co-authored by Theodore Dwight Weld and the Grimké sisters . Stowe also conducted interviews with people who escaped slavery. Stowe mentioned a number of these inspirations and sources in A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853). This non-fiction book
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