Summary Of Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe During a time when politicians hoped the American people would forget about slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a novel that brought it to the attention of thousands. Stowe’s ideas had a profound affect on a growing abolitionist movement not because they were original, but because they were common. Harriet was born in an orderly, federal-era town of Litchfield, Connecticut on June 14th 1811. She was the seventh child of Lyman and Roxana Beecher. Her family ran a boarding house during her childhood, which her father Lyman was constantly expanding to make room for is growing family and growing number of boarders. (Hendrick, 1994) Lyman Beecher joined the ministry during the beginning of the religious revival called

When the law was passed it made Northerners participants in the institution of slavery. Since Harriet was extremely opposed to the law when it was passed, it spurred her into action. As her upbringing taught her, she became an instrument of the Lord, and created the epic narrative of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She claimed that the words came to her from god with the purpose of ending slavery. (Gordon, 2011)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was about the story of Eliza Harris, the young slave mother that escapes from the Shelby plantation Kentucky to avoid being sold away from her child. Also retracing Tom’s stoic journey to the grand mansion of Augustine St. Clare in New Orleans, to Simon Legree’s horrible plantation. There we see his inner strength were he dies by being whipped by Legree. (Stowe,

John P. Jewett, wife of the Boston Publisher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was issued first as a two- volume set and later as a single volume, priced at thirty- seven cents. Before the Civil War sales reached three million and nearly doubled that by 1972. In speaking out publically against slavery, Harriet was taking a risk. So, she received a lot of criticism, most of it positive. Stowe became very popular in England. So she sailed to Liverpool with her husband and went on tour in England. Large crowds followed her and to her astonishment the men removed their hats and bowed to her. After the success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin she replied to objectors with A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and returned to the theme of anti- slavery with Dred. Between the years of 1862 and 1884, she produced at least one book every year to support her large family. Stowe not only advocated the rights of slaves but the rights of women also. She did this in the late 1860’s in a series of articles published in Atlantic Monthly. Also, she wrote more on this topic in Hearth and Home. She argued that, “ Taxation without representation is tyranny,” and urged that since women were taxed they deserved the right to elect their