Editing Uncle Tom's Cabin (section)

==Sources==
[[File:StowePainting.jpg|thumb|upright|An [[engraving]] of [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]] from 1872, based on an oil painting by [[Alonzo Chappel]]]]
Stowe, a [[Connecticut]]-born teacher at the [[Hartford Female Seminary]] and an active abolitionist, wrote the novel as a response to the passage, in 1850, of the second [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850|Fugitive Slave Act]]. Much of the book was composed at [[Harriet Beecher Stowe House (Brunswick, Maine)|her house]] in [[Brunswick, Maine]], where her husband, [[Calvin Ellis Stowe]], taught at his ''[[alma mater]]'', [[Bowdoin College]].{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 310}}{{sfn|Gatta|2015|p= 500}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/me1.htm |title=Harriet Beecher Stowe House |publisher= National Park Service |access-date= March 10, 2022}}.</ref>

Stowe was partly inspired to create ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' by the [[slave narrative]] ''[[The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself]]'' (1849).{{sfn|Oertel|2020|p=465}} [[Josiah Henson|Henson]], a formerly enslaved black man, had lived and worked on a {{cvt|3700|acre|km2|adj=on}} [[Plantations in the American South|plantation]] in [[North Bethesda, Maryland]], owned by Isaac Riley.<ref name="HensonBio">{{cite book |url=https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1500325 |author= Vicary, Elizabeth Zoe |title=Henson, Josiah (15 June 1789–05 May 1883) |publisher= American National Biography Online, Oxford University Press |date= January 12, 2006 |doi= 10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1500325 |isbn= 978-0-19-860669-7 |access-date= April 23, 2022}}</ref> Henson escaped slavery in 1830 by fleeing to the [[Upper Canada|Province of Upper Canada]] (now [[Ontario]]), where he helped other fugitive slaves settle and become self-sufficient.<ref name="HensonBio" />

Stowe was also inspired by the posthumous biography of [[Phebe Ann Jacobs]], a devout [[Congregational church|Congregationalist]] of [[Brunswick, Maine]].{{sfn|Hovet|1979|p=270}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Summary of Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/summary.html |access-date=2021-11-25 |website=docsouth.unc.edu}}</ref> Born on a slave plantation in [[Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey]], Jacobs was enslaved for most of her life, including by the president of Bowdoin College.{{sfn|Hovet|1979|pp=267-68}}<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=Mrs. T. C. Upham Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs. |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/menu.html |access-date=2022-02-10 |website=docsouth.unc.edu}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Society |first=New Jersey Historical |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3bSfAAAAMAAJ&dq=Maria+Suhm+Malleville&pg=PA138 |title=Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society |date=1919 |publisher=New Jersey Historical Society |language=en}}</ref><ref name=Bowdoin>{{Cite web |date=2021-01-28 |title=Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs, or, "Happy Phebe" by Mrs. T.C. Upham, c. 1850 |url=https://courses.bowdoin.edu/there-is-a-woman-in-every-color-2021/labor-force/narrative-of-phebe-ann-jacobs-or-happy-phebe/ |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Bowdoin College Museum of Art - There Is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art |language=en-US}}</ref> In her final years, Jacobs lived as a free woman, laundering clothes for Bowdoin students. She achieved respect from her community due to her devout religious beliefs,<ref name=Bowdoin/> and her funeral was widely attended.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Old |first=David TreadwellJust a Little |date=2021-06-18 |title=David Treadwell: Pine Grove Cemetery celebrates 200th anniversary |url=https://www.pressherald.com/2021/06/18/david-treadwell-pine-grove-cemetery-celebrates-200th-anniversary/ |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Press Herald}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Upham |first=T. C. |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/summary.html |title=Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs |publisher=J. S. Stewart |year=1850}}</ref>

Another source Stowe used as research for ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was ''[[American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses]]'', a volume co-authored by [[Theodore Dwight Weld]] and the [[Grimké sisters]].{{sfn|Ashland|2020}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/65/we/Weld-The.html|title=Weld, Theodore Dwight|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090225213915/http://www.bartleby.com/65/we/Weld-The.html|archive-date=February 25, 2009|access-date=May 15, 2007 |publisher= The Columbia Encyclopedia |edition= Sixth |date= 2001–2005 }}</ref> Stowe also conducted interviews with people who escaped slavery.{{sfn|Snodgrass|2015|p= 256}} Stowe mentioned a number of these inspirations and sources in ''[[A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' (1853).{{sfn|Ashland|2020}} This non-fiction book was intended to not only verify Stowe's claims about slavery but also point readers to the many "publicly available documents"{{sfn|Ashland|2020}} detailing the horrors of slavery.{{sfn|Stowe|1854}}<ref name="ReactionKey">{{cite web |
url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/white-southerners-said-uncle-toms-cabin-was-fake-news-180962518/ |title= White Southerners Said 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' Was Fake News: So its author published a 'key' to what's true in the novel |first= Kat |last=Eschner |work= Smithsonian Magazine |date= March 20, 2017 |access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref>