Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) is best known as the author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which played a significant role in the outbreak of the American Civil War. Stowe wrote the work in reaction to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which made it illegal to assist an escaped slave. In the book she expresses her moral outrage at the institution of slavery and its destructive effects on both races and especially on maternal bonds.

Stowe was born into a family with deep religious convictions and a social conscience that would leave a historical legacy in educational reform, the revision of Calvinist theology, abolition, literature, and women’s suffrage.

After the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe became an international celebrity and a popular author. In addition to novels, poetry and essays, she wrote non-fiction books on a wide range of subjects including homemaking and the raising of children, and religion. She wrote in an informal conversational style, and presented herself as an average wife and mother. Her realistic style and her narrative use of local dialect predated works like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn by 30 years.


Early Life

Born in Litchfield, Connecticut and raised primarily in Hartford, she was the seventh of 11 children born to Rev. Lyman Beecher, an abolitionist Congregationalist preacher, from Boston and Roxana Foote Beecher, a granddaughter of General Andrew Ward who was a member of General George Washington’s staff in the Revolutionary War. Many of her brothers and sisters became famous reformers. Henry Ward Beecher(1813-1887), a noted minister in Brooklyn, New York, was active in the abolitionist movement. Catharine Beecher(1800-1878) founded many schools for young women throughout the country and was a prolific author while her half-sister, Isabella Beecher (1822-1907), became active in the women's suffrage movement.

Her mother died of tuberculosis at 41 - when Harriet was only four. Two years later a stepmother took over the household. Stowe was named after her aunt, Harriet Foote, who deeply influenced her thinking, especially with her strong belief in culture. Samuel Foote, her uncle, encouraged her to read works of Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott.

When Stowe was eleven, she entered the seminary at Hartford, Connecticut, kept by her elder sister Catherine. The school had advanced curriculum and she learned languages, natural and mechanical science, composition, ethics, logic, and mathematics. At that time, Hartford Female Seminary was one of only a handful of schools that took the education of girls seriously. Four years after entering as a student she became an assistant teacher.

Her father married again and in 1832 the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he became the President of Lane Theological Seminary. Cincinnati was a hotbed of the abolitionist movement and this is where she gained first-hand knowledge of slavery and the Underground railroad that led her to write Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Catherine and Harriet founded a new seminary in Cincinnati, the Western Female Institute and together they wrote a children's geography book.

Marriage and family

In 1836 Harriet Beecher married Calvin Stowe, a clergyman and widower who was a professor at Lane Theological Seminary. Calvin's wife Eliza befriended Harriet Beecher when she first arrived. When Eliza died young, Harriet and Calvin were drawn together by a shared loss. Their first children were twin girls whom they chose to name Harriet and Eliza. Throughout their marriage, Calvin encouraged Harriet in her career as an author.

Six of the Stowes' seven children were born in Cincinnati. The twin girls were born on September 29, 1836. They were followed by her son Henry Ellis (1838), Frederick William (1840), Georgiana May (1843), Samuel Charles (1848), and Charles Edward (1850).

In 1850 Professor Stowe joined the faculty of his alma mater, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. The Stowe family moved to Maine and lived in Brunswick until 1853.

From Brunswick, the Stowes moved to Andover, Massachusetts, where Calvin became a professor of theology at Andover Theological Seminary from 1853 to 1864. After his retirement, the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut.

During the Hartford years Calvin wrote the Origin and History of the Books of the Bible (1867). This scholarly work was one of the first books to examine the Bible from an historical point of view. Calvin received $10,000 in royalties from the book, considered a large amount of money in those days.

In the 1860's the Stowes purchased property in Mandarin, Florida and began to travel South each winter. While in Florida Stowe helped establish schools for African American children and fostered the development of an ecumenical church open to members of all denominations. Her brother Charles (a minister, composer of religious hymns, and prolific author) joined the Stowes in Florida, to help the cause of the newly freed people.

Final years

In Hartford Harriet Beecher Stowe built her dream house, Oakholm, but the high maintenance cost and the encroachment of factories caused her to sell it in 1870. In 1873, she moved to her last home, the brick Victorian Gothic cottage-style house on Forest Street.

While living on Forest Street in Hartford Stowe and her family became acquainted with Samuel Clemens. Clemens and his family moved into a house adjacent to theirs. Clemens wrote some of his most famous books while he was living in this house. Sam Clemens was just about the same age as the Stowe twins, Harriet and Eliza.

Stowe died in 1896, two years after her husband, in Hartford. She is buried on the grounds of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

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.

Writing career

In Cincinnati Harriet became a member of the Semi-Colon Club, a local literary society in which members wrote articles which were read and discussed by other participants. Her experiences in this club sharpened her writing style. During her early married years, Harriet began to publish stories and magazine articles to supplement the family income.

In 1834 Stowe began her literary career when she won a prize contest of the Western Monthly Magazine, and soon she was a regular contributor of stories and essays. Her first book, The Mayflower, appeared in 1843.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

While she lived in Cincinnati, Harriet co-authored a book with her sister, Primary Geography for Children. After the publication of this book Stowe received a special commendation from the Bishop of Cincinnati because it conveyed a positive image of the Catholic religion. Harriet's religious tolerance was unusual for Protestants at the time.

First published in serial form from 1851 to 1852 in an abolitionist organ, the National Era, Uncle Tom's Cabin sold more than 10,000 copies the first week it was published as a book. In the story 'Uncle Tom' is bought and sold three times and finally beaten to death by his last owner. The book was quickly translated into 37 languages and it sold over half a million copies in the United States over five years. It was turned into a play that also became very popular.

Speaking of her experience of writing the book she once said,"I could not control the story, the Lord himself wrote it. I was but an instument in His hands and to Him should be given all the praise."

It is reported that when Abraham Lincoln met the Stowe he joked, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."

Stowe's fame opened doors to the national literary magazines. She started to publish her writings in The Atlantic Monthly and later in Independent and in Christian Union. For some time she was the most celebrated woman writer in The Atlantic Monthly and in the New England literary clubs. In 1853, 1856, and 1859 Stowe made journeys to Europe, where she became friends with George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Lady Byron. However, the British public opinion turned against her when she charged Lord Byron with incestuous relations with his half-sister. In Lady Byron Vindicated (1870) she publicly declared her accusation. Both The Atlantic Monthly and Stowe suffered serious criticism after it was published.

Attacks on the veracity of her portrayal of the South led Stowe to publish The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), in which she presented her source material. A second anti-slavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), told the story of a dramatic attempt at slave rebellion.

After the Civil War the popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin began to decline. 'Uncle Tom' became a pejorative term, meaning undue subservience to white people on the part of black people.

Stowe's later works did not gain the same popularity as Uncle Tom's Cabin. She published novels, studies of social life, essays, and a small volume of religious poems. The Stowes lived in Hartford in summer and spent their winters in Florida, where they had a luxurious home. The Pearl of Orr's Island (1862), Old-Town Folks (1869), and Poganuc People (1878) were partly based on her husband's childhood reminiscences and are among the first examples of local color writing in New England.

Partial list of works


References and further reading

  • Adams, John R. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Twayne Publishers (1963), ISBN 0808401505
  • Margolis, Anne, Jeanne Boydston, Mary Kelley, The Limits of Sisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women's Rights and Woman's Sphere, University of North Carolina Press (1988). ISBN 0807842079
  • White, Barbara A. The Beecher Sisters Yale University Press (2003) ISBN 0300099274
  • Matthews, Glenna. "'Little Women' Who Helped Make This Great War" in Gabor S. Boritt, ed. Why the Civil War Came, Oxford University Press (1993) ISBN 0195113764
  • Rourke, Constance Mayfield, Trumpets of Jubilee: Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lyman Beecher, Horace Greeley, P.T. Barnum (1927).
  • Thulesius, Olav Harriet Beecher Stowe in Florida, 1867-1884, McFarland and Company, (2001} ISBN 0786409320
  • Weinstein, Cindy. The Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Cambridge Companions to Literature (Cctl). Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP (2004), ISBN 0521533090

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