Harriet Beecher Stowe

There have been many great authors throughout history and every book they have written has been for specific reason. The book could be written to raise awareness for a problem or just to give people a good story to read. A book that recognizes an enormous problem for its time was Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Harriet Beecher Stowe raises awareness for a bunch of problems throughout the book. Some problems she talk about are slavery, how women are views in society, and religious values. The problem that Harriet Beecher Stowe focused most on was the cruel and unjust treatment of slave. Throughout the book in Harriet Beecher Stowe gave numerous examples of how slavery was evil and how society needs to promote anti-slavery, but
also she alluded to how slavery helped make the nation it is today. There were many reasons that affected Harriet Beecher Stowe’s point of view on slavery, such as where she lived, her family values, and her passion in life. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s reason for writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin was to promote anti-slavery and spark a movement for it.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut in 1811 and was daughter to a leading congregationalist minister (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life).
Connecticut was a northern state that was against slavery. Where and how Harriet Beecher Stowe was raised played a huge role in her beliefs about slavery and ways that she could promote the issue. Harriet’s sister Catherine became a teacher and was very influential on the way that Harriet though of the society and Harriet’s social values (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life). Coming from a big family I can tell you firsthand that you can learn a lot from your siblings and cousins successes and failures. The environment children are raised in is very important because it plays a big role in their thoughts and actions. When she was 21 Harriet moved to Cincinnati Ohio where riots were going on, and Harriet’s father had become a strong abolitionist for slavery (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life). It is obvious that Harriet Beecher Stowe’s dad also impacted the way that Harriet thought of slavery. It is natural to learn from your parents and their beliefs. An example is I am Catholic not because I chose to be when I was baptised, but because my parents raised me in the Catholic church and taught me the Catholic values. Parents and other adults also play an enormous role in how children act and think. Children tend to take their parents side and learn from their parents and that is part of growing up. The quote the apple doesn’t fall far
from the tree is very true in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s case, because through her writing she is a big advocate for anti-slavery like her father. Harriet’s passion in life was to write and speak her mind about the problems in the society. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s most acclaimed writings were the ones that addressed controversial topics at that point of time. Examples of controversial topics are slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Calvinism in The Minister’s Wooing. Harriet’s passion for writing allowed her to express her thoughts in a time when women could not express their opinions, because they were look at as inferior (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life).
In Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe tried to raise awareness for a problem that had plagued the United States for generations, which was slavery. Slavery is like the racism of today, but in a more extreme form and slavery was widely accepted by certain parts of society. Through writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe gave people a way to illustrate the effect of slavery on families, while also allowing the readers to connect with the characters and feel the pain with them. When Abraham Lincoln greeted Harriet Beecher Stowe he said “so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war” (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life). This quote alone shows how big of effect this book had on society and it did spark a movement for the abolition of slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin promoted anti-slavery so well that it helped in the creation of the civil war. Writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not the only thing that Harriet Beecher Stowe did to promote anti-slavery, she was apart of a New York newspaper called The Independent. The Independent helped send out items to anti-slavery funding fairs and she also wrote editorials on anti-slavery (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life).
As bad as slavery sounds it was also crucial in the success of the United States. Slavery was crucial to the economy even the northern states benefited from slavery. From the earliest days of the American colonies, African slaves played an important role in the South because there was a shortage of workers throughout the fledgling nation (Gale Library of Daily Life: Slavery in America). Slavery allowed the Southern plantation owners to produce cotton, tobacco, and other cash crops for such a little amount, because they did not have to pay their workers. Southern plantation owners would sell their crops to companies in the north to ship across the world. Since the United States were able to produce crops for such a little cost it made the United States a worldwide economic power. When slavery was abolished it ruined the south’s economy because money crops were the only thing that the south had. Another study, by Alfred Conrad and John Meyer, calculated the rate of return on investing in slaves. They reckoned that “slave capital” earned at least equal returns to those from other forms of capital investment—such as railroad bonds. The rate of return on slaves could be as high as 13%—compared to a yield of 6-8% on the railroads (Conrad, A. H., & Meyer, J. R.). This quote says that slavery was one of the most profitable industries in the United States at the time. It was not only the slave owners that were making money off slaves, the slave traders and slave transporters made a good amount of money as well. As terrible as slavery was and has left an awful scar on American history, it was crucial for the economy at the time.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s promotion of the anti-slavery movement is a big reason why Uncle Tom’s Cabin is such a famous novel.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s passion, family, and area she lived in all helped her express her point of view on the abolition of slavery. Even though slavery was so cruel and unjust our country would be a lot different if we did not have slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is such a great novel because the problem it addresses was so meaningful at the time it was written. There is always a reason why an author writes a book, as a reader we must acknowledge the reason and choose if we are for or against
it.