Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) depicted life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the U.S. and Britain and made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Upon meeting Stowe, Abraham Lincoln allegedly remarked, "So this is the little old lady who started this new great war!"

Early life

Born in Litchfield, Connecticut on June 14, 1811, Beecher Stowe was the daughter of an outspoken religious leader Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote, a deeply religious woman who died when Stowe was four years old. She was the sister of the educator and author, Catharine Beecher, clergymen Henry Ward Beecher and Charles Beecher. Stowe enrolled in the seminary run by her eldest sister Catherina, where she received a traditionally "male" education. At the age of 21, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to join her father, who had become the president of Lane Theological Seminary, and in 1836 she married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor at the seminary and an ardent critic of slavery. The Stowes supported the Underground Railroad and housed several fugitive slaves in their home. They eventually moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Calvin taught at Bowdoin College. In 1850 Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law prohibiting assistance to fugitives. Stowe was moved to present her objections on paper, and in June 1851 the first installment of Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared in the antislavery journal National Era. The forty-year-old mother of seven children sparked a national debate and, as Abraham Lincoln is said to have noted, a war. Stowe died on July 1, 1896, at age eighty-five, in Hartford, Connecticut.

Landmarks related to Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati, Ohio is the former home of her father Lyman Beecher on the former campus of the Lane Seminary. Her father was a preacher who was greatly effected by the pro-slavery riots that took place in Cincinnati in 1834. Beecher Stowe lived here until her marriage. It is open to the public and operated as an historical and cultural site, focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Lane Seminary and the Underground Railroad. The site also presents African-American history.

In the 1870s and 1880s, Harriet Beecher Stowe and her family wintered in Mandarin, south of Jacksonville on the St. Johns River. Stowe wrote Palmetto Leaves while living in Mandarin, arguably the most effective and eloquent piece of promotional literature directed at Florida's potential Northern investors at the time. The book was published in 1873 and describes Northeast Florida and its residents. In 1870, Stowe created an integrated school in Mandarin for children and adults. This was an early step toward providing equal education in the area and predated the national movement toward integration by more than a half century. The marker commemorating the Stowe family is located across the street from the former site of their cottage. It is on the property of the Community Club, at the site of a church where Stowe's husband once served as a minister.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Brunswick, Maine is where Uncle Tom's Cabin was written while Harriet and Calvin lived there while Calvin worked at Bowdoin College. Although local interest for its preservation as a museum has been strong in the past, it has long been an inn and German restaurant. It most recently changed ownership in 1999 for $865,000.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Hartford, Connecticut is the house where Harriet lived for the last 23 years of her life. In this 5000 sqft (464.52 m²) cottage style house, there are many of Beecher Stowe's original items and items from the time period. In the research library, which is open to the public, there are numerous letters and documents from the Beecher family. The house is opened to the public and offers house tours on the half hour.

Partial list of works

The Mayflower; or, Sketches of Scenes and Characters Among the Descendants of the Pilgrims (1834)
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853)
Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856)
The Minister's Wooing (1859)
The Pearl of Orr's Island (1862)
Men of Our Times (1868)
Old Town Folks (1869)
Little Pussy Willow (1870)
Lady Byron Vindicated (1870)
My Wife and I (1871)
Pink and White Tyranny (1871)
Woman in Sacred History (1873)
Palmetto-Leaves (1873)
We and Our Neighbors (1875)
Poganuc People (1878)
The Poor Life (1890)

As Christopher Crowfield

House and Home Papers (1865)
Little Foxes (1866)
The Chimney Corner (1868)

References and further reading

Jeanne Boydston, Mary Kelley, and Anne Margolis, The Limits of Sisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women's Rights and Woman's Sphere (U of North Carolina Press, 1988),
Matthews, Glenna. "'Little Women' Who Helped Make This Great War" in Gabor S. Boritt, ed. Why the Civil War Came - Oxford University Press pp 31–50.
Gossett, Thomas F. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture. Southern Methodist University Press: 1985.
Hedrick, Joan D. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. Oxford University Press: 1994, the main scholarly biography
Rourke, Constance Mayfield. Trumpets of Jubilee: Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lyman Beecher, Horace Greeley, P.T. Barnum (1927).
Stowe, Charles Edward. The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe: Compiled from her letters and journals. (1889). by her son
Sundquist, Eric J. ed. ''New Essays on Uncle Tom’s Cabin.'' Cambridge University Press: 1986.
Weinstein, Cindy. ''The Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher Stowe''. Cambridge UP, 2004. ISBN 978-0-521-53309-6
Wilson, Edmund. '' Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War'' (1962) pp 3–58
Stowe, Harriet Beecher: Three Novels (Kathryn Kish Sklar, ed.) (Library of America, 1982) ISBN 978-0-94045001-1
Fritz, Jean. '' Harriet Beacher Stowe and The Beecher Preachers

Other sources

[http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:1852/utc/responses/reviews/ Bailey, Gamaliel. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Book Review. Washington, D.C.: The National Era, 1852]
[http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:1852/utc/responses/proslav/ Brown, David. The Planter; or, Thirteen Years in the South. Philadelphia: H. Hooker, 1852]
[http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library Douglass, Frederick. Letter to Harriet Beecher Stowe]
[http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:1852/utc/responses/reviews London Times Review, 1852. American Slavery. English opinion of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”]
[http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:1852/utc/responses/proslav/ Slavery in the South. Cambridge: John Barlett, 1852]
[http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:1852/utc/reponses/proslav/ Stearns, Reverend E.J. Notes on Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Philadelphia: Grambo &Co., 1853]
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. USA: 1852. New York: Barnes and Nobles Classics: 2003.
[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA97/riedy/georgna.html Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Letters]
[http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu:1852/utc/responses/proslav/ The Patent Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Mrs. Stowe in England. New York: Pudney & Russell, 1853]
[http://wf2la2.webfeat.org/ American Council of Learned Societies. Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe. 1928-1936]
Bland, Celia. Harriet Beecher Stowe: Antislavery Author. Chelsea House Publishers: 1993.
Claybaugh, Amanda. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Introduction. New York: Barnes and Nobles Classics: 2003.
Coil, Suzanne M. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Franklin Watts: 1993.
[http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/stowe1.htm Harriet Beecher Stowe]
Johnston, Johanna. Harriet and the Runaway Book. USA: Harper and Row Publishers: 1977.
[http://www.aboutfamouspeople.com/article1013.html Marck, John T. Harriet Beecher Stowe: her Life and Writings]
[http://www.uwm.edu/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg149.htm The Classical Text: Harriet Beecher Stowe]

Translation

The phrase "Harriet Beecher Stowe" occurs as such in the following languages: English, Catalan, Welsh, German, Estonian, Spanish, Esperanto, Faroese, French, Indonesian, Italian, Latin, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Dutch, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, Vietnamese.

Translation(s) in other languages: Arabic: هيريت ستاو, Azeri: Harriyet Biçer-Stou, Bulgarian: Хариет Бичър Стоу, Danish: Harriet Beecher-Stowe, Persian: هریت بیچر استو, Korean: 헤리엇 비처 스토, Hebrew: הארייט ביצ'ר סטואו, Macedonian: Хариет Бичер Стоу, Malayalam: ഹാരിയറ്റ് ബീച്ചര്‍ സ്റ്റോ, Japanese: ハリエット・ビーチャー・ストウ, Low Saxon: Harriet Beecher-Stowe, Russian: Бичер-Стоу, Гарриет, Serbian: Херијет Елизабет Бичер Стоу, Finnish: Harriet Beecher-Stowe, Thai: แฮเรียต บีเชอร์ สโตว์, Tajik: Ҳарриет Бичер Стоу, Ukrainian: Гаррієт Бічер-Стоу, Chinese: 哈里特·伊丽莎白·比彻·斯托.