Uncle Tom's Cabin - Fiction as a Catalyst for Fact

The Origins of a Living Document

Stage Night

North and South Polarized: Critics Respond

The Abolitionist Debates

The Tom Caricature

The Greatest Impact

The Origins of a Living Document

In her own words, Harriet Beecher Stowe was compelled to pen Uncle Tom's Cabin "....because as a woman, as a mother, I was oppressed and broken-hearted with the sorrows and injustice I saw, because as a Christian I felt the dishonor to Christianity -because as a lover of my country, I trembled at the coming day of wrath."1 Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on June 14th, 1811. Her strong moral convictions may be attributed to the fact that she was raised as the daughter of a well-known Congregationalist minister, Lyman Beecher.

Harriet was the seventh of nine children, which certainly implies an instilled sense of tolerance, fairness and sharing throughout...
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