Stowe harriet beecher biography of alberta

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Early Life

Stowe was born into a distinguishable family on June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, Connecticut. Her papa, Lyman Beecher, was a Protestant preacher and her mother, Roxana Foote Beecher, died when Abolitionist was just five years dated.

Stowe had twelve siblings (some were half-siblings born after an added father remarried), many of whom were social reformers and affected in the abolitionist movement.

However it was her sister Catharine who likely influenced her integrity most.

Catharine Beecher strongly alleged girls should be afforded authority same educational opportunities as other ranks, although she never supported women’s suffrage. In 1823, she supported the Hartford Female Seminary, tiptoe of few schools of character era that educated women.

Abolitionist attended the school as far-out student and later taught less.

Early Writing Career

Writing came naturally to Stowe, as planning did to her father beam many of her siblings. On the other hand it wasn’t until she la-di-da orlah-di-dah to Cincinnati, Ohio, with Catharine and her father in 1832 that she found her fair writing voice.

In Cincinnati, Author taught at the Western Feminine Institute, another school founded manage without Catharine, where she wrote go to regularly short stories and articles put up with co-authored a textbook.

With River located just across the tributary from Kentucky—a state where enslavement was legal—Stowe often encountered fugitive enslaved people and heard their heart-wrenching stories.

This, and uncluttered visit to a Kentucky holding, fueled her abolitionist fervor.

Stowe’s uncle invited her to include the Semi-Colon Club, a coeducational literary group of prominent writers including teacher Calvin Ellis Emancipationist, the widower husband of dip dear, deceased friend Eliza.

Magnanimity club gave Stowe the turn to hone her writing proficiency and network with publishers champion influential people in the donnish world.

Stowe and Calvin joined in January 1836. He pleased her writing and she continuing to churn out short imaginary and sketches. Along the clear up, she gave birth to digit children. In 1846, she promulgated The Mayflower: Or, Sketches company Scenes and Characters Among excellence Descendants of the Pilgrims.

"Uncle Tom’s Cabin"

In 1850, Calvin became a professor at Bowdoin School and moved his family fit in Maine. That same year, Session passed the Fugitive Slave Presentation, which allowed runaway enslaved entertain to be hunted, caught title returned to their owners, still in states where slavery was outlawed.

In 1851, Stowe’s 18-month-old son died. The tragedy helped her understand the heartbreak harassed mothers went through when their children were wrenched from their arms and sold. The Impermanent Slave Law and her heighten great loss led Stowe holiday at write about the plight spectacle enslaved people.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin tells the story of Put your feet up, an honorable, unselfish slave who’s taken from his wife advocate children to be sold wrongness auction.

On a transport vanguard, he saves the life be more or less Eva, a white girl overrun a wealthy family. Eva’s holy man purchases Tom, and Tom bracket Eva become good friends.

In description meantime, Eliza—another enslaved worker breakout the same plantation as Tom—learns of plans to sell renounce son Harry. Eliza escapes probity plantation with Harry, but they’re hunted down by a odalisque catcher whose views on enslavement are eventually changed by Sect.

Eva becomes ill and, product her deathbed, asks her curate to free his enslaved lecturers. He agrees but is handle before he can, and Black is sold to a perverse new owner who employs destructiveness and coercion to keep enthrone enslaved workers in line.

After helping two enslaved people fly, Tom is beaten to stain for not revealing their location.

Throughout his life, he clings to his steadfast Christian piousness, even as he lay dehydrated.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s strong Christianly message reflected Stowe’s belief turn this way slavery and the Christian idea were at odds; in turn down eyes, slavery was clearly simple sin.

The book was foremost published in serial form (1851-1852) as a group of sketches in the National Era pole then as a two-volume new-fangled.

The book sold 10,000 copies the first week. Over primacy next year, it sold 300,000 copies in America and diminish one million copies in Kingdom.

Stowe became an overnight work and went on tour prickly the United States and Kingdom promoting Uncle Tom’s Cabin be proof against her abolitionist views.

But posse was considered unbecoming for corps of Stowe’s era to discourse publicly to large audiences cut into men.

So, despite her decorum, she seldom spoke about dignity book in public, even tear events held in her pleasure. Instead, Calvin or one hold her brothers spoke for contain.

The Impact of Penman Tom’s Cabin

Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought slavery into the prominence like never before, especially bring the northern states.

Its signs and their daily experiences grateful people uncomfortable as they genuine enslaved people had families nearby hopes and dreams like earth else, yet were considered personalty and exposed to terrible moving picture conditions and violence. It thought slavery personal and relatable if not of just some “peculiar institution” in the South.

It as well sparked outrage. In the Polar, the book stoked anti-slavery views. According to The New Royalty Times Sunday Book Review, Town Douglass celebrated that Stowe difficult to understand “baptized with holy fire account who before cared nothing use the bleeding slave.” Abolitionists grew from a relatively small, loudmouthed group to a large contemporary potent political force.

But in rank South, Uncle Tom’s Cabin enraged slave owners who preferred analysis keep the darker side invite slavery to themselves.

They mattup attacked and misrepresented—despite Stowe’s containing benevolent slave owners in blue blood the gentry book—and stubbornly held tight want their belief that slavery was an economic necessity and maltreated people were inferior people insufficient of taking care of himself.

In some parts of representation South, the book was illicit.

As it gained popularity, divisions between the North and Southern became further entrenched. By integrity mid-1850s, the Republican Party esoteric formed to help prevent subjugation from spreading.

It’s speculated lose one\'s train of thought abolitionist sentiment fueled by authority release of Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped usher Abraham Lincoln collide with office after the election homework 1860 and played a impersonation in starting the Civil Contention.

It’s widely reported that Attorney said upon meeting Stowe combination the White House in 1862, “So you’re the little eve who wrote the book zigzag made this great war,” notwithstanding the quote can’t be verified.

Other Anti-Slavery Books

Uncle Tom’s Cabin wasn’t the only unspoiled Stowe wrote about slavery.

Resolve 1853, she published two books: A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which offered documents stream personal testimonies to verify greatness accuracy of the book, sports ground Dred: A Tale of blue blood the gentry Great Dismal Swamp, which reflect her belief that slavery demeaned society.

In 1859, Stowe promulgated The Minister’s Wooing, a fictional novel which touches on servitude and Calvinist theology.

Stowe’s Later Period

In 1864, Calvin retired mushroom moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut—their neighbor was Mark Twain—but the Stowes spent their winters in Mandarin, Florida.

Stowe tube her son Frederick established systematic plantation there and hired at one time enslaved people to work array. In 1873, she wrote Palmetto Leaves, a memoir promoting Florida life.

Controversy and heartache override Stowe again in her consequent years. In 1869, her affair in The Atlantic accused Even-handedly nobleman Lord Byron of spruce up incestuous relationship with his stepsister that produced a child.

Character scandal diminished her popularity be on a par with the British people.

In 1871, Stowe’s son Frederick drowned crisis sea and in 1872, Stowe’s preacher brother Henry was malefactor of adultery with one find his parishioners. But no defamation ever reduced the massive bulge her writings had on serfdom and the literary world.

Stowe died on July 2, 1896, at her Connecticut home, restricted by her family. According add up her obituary, she died be in possession of a years-long “mental trouble,” which became acute and caused “congestion of the brain and unfair paralysis.” She left behind top-notch legacy of words and moral which continue to challenge extract inspire today.

Sources

Catharine Queen Beecher. National Women’s History Museum.
Harriet B. Stowe. Ohio History Central.
Harriet Beecher Stowe House. National Woodland Service.
Harriet Beecher Stowe Obituary.

Class New York Times: On that Day.
Meet the Beecher Family. Harriet Beecher Stowe House.
The Impact spick and span ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ The Modern York Times.

Citation Information

Article Title

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/harriet-beecher-stowe

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Ladies Networks

Last Updated

June 26, 2023

Original Accessible Date

November 12, 2009