Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an American author, abolitionist, and social reformer. Stowe was born in 1811 in Connecticut into a deeply religious and intellectually engaged family. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was a prominent Congregationalist minister, and her siblings were also active in various social and religious causes. Harriet herself was strongly influenced by the abolitionist movement and her exposure to the harsh realities of slavery, particularly after moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, a city on the border between free and slave states.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was initially published as a serial in the abolitionist newspaper The National Era before being released as a complete novel in 1852. The book quickly became a bestseller and had a profound impact on attitudes toward slavery in the United States. It tells the story of several enslaved African Americans, focusing primarily on the character of Uncle Tom, a deeply moral and dignified man who suffers greatly under the cruelty of slavery.
Stowe’s novel was a powerful indictment of the institution of slavery and helped to humanize enslaved people in the eyes of white readers who might not have previously considered the brutal realities of their lives. While some of the characters have since been criticized for perpetuating stereotypes, at the time, the book played a key role in mobilizing anti-slavery sentiment across the North.
The impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was so significant that, according to popular legend, when President Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe during the Civil War, he remarked, “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war.”
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