Uncle Tom's Cabin

Simon Legree menaces Uncle Tom

Uncle Tom's Cabin (ISBN 0553212184) is a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, in which slavery is a major theme. Stowe had written the novel as an angry response to the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, which punished those who aided runaway slaves and diminished the rights of fugitives as well as freed slaves. Many writers have credited this novel with inflaming the passions of Northerners to work towards the abolition of slavery, though the novel's historical influence has been disputed (Stowe never set foot on a Southern plantation). Uncle Tom's Cabin was first published on March 20, 1852.

Before being published in novel form, the story was a long-running, anti-slavery serial called Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly. It ran in the National Era , an abolitionist periodical, for eleven months starting in the June 5th, 1851 issue.

Stowe lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, and:

"she observed firsthand several incidents which galvanized her to write [the] famous anti-slavery novel. Scenes she observed on the Ohio River, including seeing a husband and wife being sold apart, as well as newspaper and magazine accounts and interviews, contributed material to the emerging plot." [1]

Famous characters:

• Simon Legree, villainous slave owner whose name has become synonymous with greed.
• Topsy, a young slave girl who "just growed" and was transformed by Little Eva's love.
• Uncle Tom, noble long-suffering Christian slave, after whom the book is named. His name has become an epithet, largely as a result of innacurate play and movie interpretations.
• Little Eva, saintly white girl whom Uncle Tom befriends.

The term Uncle Tom, an offensive slur directed at African-Americans considered to be humiliatingly subservient to white people, is derived from this novel.

'Uncle Tom's Cabin' has been made into several movies.

Related articles

• Origins of the American Civil War
• Abolitionism
• Slavery
• History of slavery in the United States
• St. Clair Avenue, Toronto
• Harriet Beecher Stowe

External links

• University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee special collections
• Project Gutenberg listing
• PBS Africans in America