In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, causing a furor among Northerners since it legally forced all citizens to pursue runaway enslaved people and return them to their enslavers. In response, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which portrayed the enslaved with human qualities and Christian ideals. This challenged her readers to reexamine their definitions of Christianity and the role of slavery in a Christian society. She further described the horrors of slavery and examined the negative moral impact to both Northerners and Southerners. Uncle Tom’s Cabin became one of America’s all-time best sellers, with 300,000 copies sold in the first year. It is credited with keeping slavery as a central national issue in the years preceding the Civil War. When President Lincoln met Stowe in 1863, he was reported as saying, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. [Title page from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly”.] John P. Jewett & Company, 1852. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l05-080/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
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