• NOVELIST & ANTI-SLAVERY ACTIVIST
• One of thirteen children, all of whom were activists in one way or another, including seven brothers who became preachers, and a sister who cofounded the National Woman Suffrage Association
• Worked as a teacher in Connecticut and Ohio, and wrote magazine pieces about daily life
• Wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin as a response to the Fugitive Slave Law, which criminalized helping runaway slaves nationwide
• The novel was based on true stories that showed the brutality slaves endured, and was meant to counter the pervasive -- and very, very false -- narrative that slaves were happy and well-treated
• Uncle Tom's Cabin was an instant BESTSELLER around the world, hailed by such notable authors as Victor Hugo, George Eliot, and Leo Tolstoy
• It was the FIRST book ever to achieve such success so quickly, but more importantly, it succeeded in rallying the public to the abolitionist cause
• Stowe and her book became the focus of virulent criticism from not only the South, but also some in the North, who saw it as stoking the flames of division
• Several Southern authors wrote their own versions of the book, portraying slavery as a good thing
• Legend has it that when Stowe met President Lincoln in 1862, he said, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"
• Also fought for women's rights

Public Domain Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The Trouble With Tom

~ While Stowe's most famous novel achieved her goal of inspiring sympathy for slaves, Uncle Tom's Cabin has since been criticized for its stereotypical and limited portrayals of Black people. The title itself reinforces the "Uncle" label, which, like the "Aunt" nickname applied to Black women (such as Clara Brown), helped erase a Black person's individuality and dignity. Stowe herself has also been charged with harboring and supporting racist perspectives of Black people as simple and docile, unable to uplift themselves without the aid of white benefactors.

~ Today, being called an "Uncle Tom" is pejorative -- a slur describing a Black person as sycophantic towards white people and duplicitous towards other Black people. Stowe's title character, however, is not the true basis for this stereotype. The literary Tom is a devout, noble character who sacrifices his own life by defying his white owner in order to save the lives of two slave women. The birth of the servile Uncle Tom image comes from late 19th and early 20th century theater and film productions, which erased Stowe's story while keeping the "Uncle Tom" name, replacing it with shows that cast its Black performers (and often white performers in blackface) in every racist caricature imaginable.

Bibliography: Doyle, Caitlin. Girls Can Do Anything: From Sports to Innovation, Art to Politics, Meet Over 200 Women Who Got There First. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2016. Print.
Schoolman, Martha. “Stowe, Harriet Beecher.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Vol. 4, Oxford University Press, 2008, 160-161.
Shen, Ann. Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2016. Print.
​(2008, July 30). Why African-Americans Loathe ‘Uncle Tom’. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93059468
Younge, Gary. (2002, March 29). Don’t Blame Uncle Tom. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/30/race.society

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