Contexts for Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe Monday, April 5, 2021 Today’s Agenda • Announcements  Student Hours tomorrow: 1:45 – 3:45  RP1 returned tomorrow at latest  RP2 due next Monday, April 12  Harriet Beecher Stowe (838-40): Uncle Tom’s Cabin (840-861)  Background and Contexts       Stowe’s background Plot/themes Bestseller/target Women as abolitionists Fugitive Slave Law Frances Ellen Watkins Harper? 19th Century Canon! • This is a set of books I received for Christmas when I was 12. • All these “American Classics” are from the 19th century. • All are by white authors. • All but one are by men. • Only woman-authored text . . . Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin Making of a Bestseller • Stowe belonged to famously influential Beecher family – ministers, educators, writers, activists • Moved from New England to Cincinnati, largest town in the “West” • Anti-abolitionist riots in 1836 (same year Harriet Beecher married Calvin Stowe); Black and abolitionist writers were beaten and killed • Stowe had already written anti-slavery pieces, but the death of her son Samuel (1849) gave her new sympathy for others’ pain • Published Uncle Tom’s Cabin as serial (1851-52) in National Era, a weekly abolitionist periodical • Published Uncle Tom’s Cabin as book (1852) and it exploded Your Response  First reactions? Second readings?  What made this book so powerful in the 19th century?  What value can it have for us now? Contexts  Plot/themes of Uncle Tom’s Cabin  Women’s role in abolition  Fugitive Slave Law  Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Plot/Themes • Begins with contrast of married slaves with different owners: • George (Equiano figure?) is a mechanical genius oppressed by bitter and jealous owner; plans to run away and buy Eliza and Harry’s freedom later • Eliza (Wheatley figure?) feels valued and safe in Shelby family, BUT . . . • Mr. Shelby sells Tom and Harry, the two most valuable slaves, to pay debt • Mrs. Shelby realizes that kind treatment doesn’t excuse a system that treats humans as objects and destroys families • Tom (Christ figure) is sold several times – his journey exposes the system of slavery and range of abuses • Eliza takes Harry and runs – her journey shows an underground system of resistance Uncle Tom’s Cabin as Target • Huge negative reaction from South; flurry of pro-slavery novels • Accused of exaggerating or fabricating abuses, Stowe collected testimonies about the horrors of slavery and published a Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin • 20th century saw shift in literary aesthetic away from religious, sentimental, politically-driven writing; UTC wasn’t true art • Although contemporaries like Frederick Douglass and F.E.W. Harper celebrated the book, 20th and 21st century critics were troubled by use of dialect, the protagonists’ passivity (Tom) and light skin color (George and Eliza), focus on white-run underground railroad, and the emigration to Africa at conclusion. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911)  Free African American woman writer, educator, and activist  Most popular African American woman writer of 19th century  Borrows female characters from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Eliza and Chloe) to make her own arguments  Against slavery in “Eliza Harris” (p. 1242-44)  For African American women’s agency in “Learning to Read” (p. 1245-46) For this week Tuesday, April 6, 11:59 p.m. Week 7 assignments due Wednesday, April 7 Frederick Douglass (996-1000): “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (1066-69) Friday, April 9 Prep Poem in Your Pocket event 
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