Difference between revisions of "Harriet Beecher Stowe" - New World Encyclopedia

Revision as of 20:16, 18 September 2006

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, born Harriet Elizabeth Beecher (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) Harriet grew up as the daughter of a minister, Lyman Beecher & mother Roxana. HB's parents were extremely outspoken of their moral outrage with and concerning slavery.

Harriet inherited that righteous indignant heart naturally. She despised slavery, for the effect it had upon the family, the very fact, that a black family could have their children sold! The very idea, of a mothers suffering & dreadful experience for the sale of her children, the irreparable damage to not only the slave family, but the impact it had upon the very nation of America. Harriet's outrage was to the injustice of it and the fact that due to her upbringing, she knew it was in fact having a devastating effect upon the nation as a whole. She could not abide it. Therefore, this was the motive and reason she had in writing Uncle Tom's cabin, to push the issue to the forefront, to force all to deal with the issue and not allow it to continue.

As an was an abolitionist and writer the most famous forUncle Tom's Cabin which describes life in slavery, and which was first published in serial form from 1851 to 1852 in an abolitionist organ, the National Era, edited by Gamaliel Bailey. Thorugh out the years of 1862 and 1864,HB was able to write at least a book a year during that time. She was determined to keep the issue of slavery, the damage it inflicted upon the very foundation for which America was founded. Harriet was able to point out very graphically, the fact that we as humankind could not allow this to continue. The very hypocrisy of it, was one thing, but the hurt it caused was everlasting. Fortunately, she had the intestinal foritude, to stand up and point out what everyone needed to see and therefore, do something about it.

Harriet went on to publish A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, a non-fiction work documenting the veracity of her depiction of the lives of slaves in the original novel.

Her second novel was Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp: another anti-slavery novel.

Born in Litchfield, Connecticut and raised primarily in Hartford, she was the daughter of Lyman Beecher, an abolitionist Congregationalist preacher from Boston and Roxana Foote Beecher, and the sister of renowned minister, Henry Ward Beecher. She had two other prominent and activist siblings, a brother, Charles Beecher, and a sister, Catharine Beecher. In 1832, her family moved to Cincinnati, another hotbed of the abolitionist movement, where her father became the first president of Lane Theological Seminary. There she gained first-hand knowledge of slavery and the Underground railroad and was moved to write Uncle Tom's Cabin, the first major American novel with an African-American hero.

In 1836 Harriet Beecher married Calvin Stowe, a clergyman and widower. Later she and her husband moved to Brunswick, Maine, when he obtained an academic position at Bowdoin College. Harriet and Calvin had seven children, but some died in early childhood. Her first children, twin girls Hattie and Eliza, were born on September 29, 1836. Four years later, in 1840, her son Frederick William was born. In 1848 the birth of Samuel Charles occurred, but in the following year, he died from a cholera epidemic. She is buried on the grounds of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.^[1]

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. Harriet 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. The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati is located at 2950 Gilbert Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45206. [1]

Quotations

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, until it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the time and place that the tide will turn."

"Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be."

"What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity & greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of heroic."

"To be really great in the little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare to be worthy of canonization."

"The past, the present and the future are really one; they are today."

"One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not,why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least try.It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me."

"No one is so throughly superstitious as the godless man."

"Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."

"Most mothers are instintive philosophers."

"In the ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are His gift to all alike."

"I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred- that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt."

"Everyone confesses that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us; but most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do."

"A little reflection will enable any person to detect in himself that setness in trifles which is the result of the unwatched instinct of self-will and to establish over himself a jealous guardianship."

Partial list of works

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851)
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)
As "Christopher Crowfield"
- House and Home Papers (1865)
- Little Foxes (1866)
- The Chimney Corner (1868)
Old Town Folks (1869)
The Ghost in the Cap'n Brown (1870)
Lady Byron Vindicated (1870)
My Wife and I (1871)
Pink and White Tyranny (1871)
We and Our Neighbors (1875)
Poganuc People (1878)

Credits

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/stowe/StoweHB.html

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blstowe.htm Sept 5 2006

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/harriet_beecher_stowe.html Sept 5 2006

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/37690.html Sept 1 2006

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 31, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition: http://www.library.eb.com/eb/article-9069861 Aug 31 2006

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=womenshistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chfweb.com%2Fsmith%2Fharriet.html Aug 31 2006

References and further reading

Adams, John R. (1963). Harriet Beecher Stowe. Twayne Publishers, Inc.. Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 63-17370.
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.
Constance Mayfield Rourke; Trumpets of Jubilee: Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lyman Beecher, Horace Greeley, P.T. Barnum (1927).
Thulesius, Olav (2001). Harriet Beecher Stowe in Florida, 1867-1884. McFarland and Company, Inc..
Weinstein, Cindy. The Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Cambridge Companions to Literature (Cctl). Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2004. ISBN 9780521533096 Template:Invalid isbn(pbk.); ISBN 9780521825924 Template:Invalid isbn(hbk.)

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Wikisource has original works written by or about: