Editing Uncle Tom's Cabin (section)

==Reactions to the novel==
{{Events leading to the American Civil War}}
''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' has exerted an influence equaled by few other novels in history.{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=124}}<ref name=Hollis>{{cite web |last= Robbins |first= Hollis |author-link=Hollis Robbins |url= http://www.gilderlehrman.org/historynow/06_2008/historian2.php |title=''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and the Matter of Influence |publisher= Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |access-date=December 24, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101110085418/https://www.gilderlehrman.org/historynow/06_2008/historian2.php |archive-date=November 10, 2010}}</ref> Upon publication, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' ignited a firestorm of protest from defenders of slavery (who created a number of books in response to the novel) while the book elicited praise from abolitionists. The novel is considered an influential{{sfn|Kabatchnik|2017|p=269}} "landmark" of protest literature.{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=161}}

===Contemporary reaction in United States and around the world===
[[File:Uncle Tom's Cabin cover.jpg|thumb|upright|Stowe responded to criticism by writing ''[[A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' (1853), documenting the veracity of her novel's depiction of slavery.]]
''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' had an "incalculable"{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=124}} impact on the 19th-century world and captured the imagination of many Americans. In a likely [[wikt:apocryphal|apocryphal]] story that alludes to the novel's impact, when [[Abraham Lincoln]] met Stowe in 1862 he supposedly commented, "So this is the little lady who started this great war."{{sfn|Stowe|1911|p=203}}{{sfn|Vollaro|2009}}{{sfn|Painter|2000|pp= 245–246}} Historians are undecided if Lincoln actually said this line, and in a letter that Stowe wrote to her husband a few hours after meeting with Lincoln no mention of this comment was made.{{sfn|Claybaugh|2003|p=xvii}} Many writers have also credited the novel with focusing Northern anger at the injustices of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law{{sfn|Claybaugh|2003|p=xvii}} and helping to fuel the abolitionist movement.{{sfn|Goldner|2001|p= 82}}{{sfn|DeLombard|2012}} [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] [[General officer|general]] and politician [[James Baird Weaver]] said that the book convinced him to become active in the abolitionist movement.{{sfn|Arnett|1920|pp=154–157}}

[[Frederick Douglass]] was "convinced both of the social uses of the novel and of Stowe's humanitarianism" and heavily promoted the novel in his newspaper during the book's initial release.<ref name="FrederickDouglass">{{cite web |url=https://daily.jstor.org/frederick-douglass-feud-over-uncle-toms-cabin/ |title= Frederick Douglass's Feud Over Uncle Tom's Cabin |first= Grant |last= Shreve |publisher= JSTOR Daily |date= January 29, 2018|access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref> Though Douglass said ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was "a work of marvelous depth and power," he also published criticism of the novel, most prominently by [[Martin Delany]]. In a series of letters in the paper, Delany accused Stowe of "borrowing (and thus profiting) from the work of black writers to compose her novel" and chastised Stowe for her "apparent support of black colonization to Africa."<ref name="FrederickDouglass"/> Martin was "one of the most out-spoken black critics" of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' at the time and later wrote ''[[Blake; or the Huts of America]],'' a novel where an African American "chooses violent rebellion over Tom's resignation."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/africam/blakehp.html |title= Stand still and see the salvation|work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 20, 2022}}</ref>

White people in the [[Southern United States|American South]] were outraged at the novel's release,<ref name=pbs-4p2958>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2958.html |title=Slave narratives and ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' |work=Africans in America |publisher= PBS |access-date= February 16, 2007}}</ref> with the book also roundly criticized by slavery supporters.<ref name="ReactionKey"/> Southern novelist [[William Gilmore Simms]] declared the work utterly false{{sfn|Watson|1976|pp=365–368}} while also calling it slanderous.{{sfn|Brophy|1995–1996|p= 496}} Reactions ranged from a bookseller in [[Mobile, Alabama]], being forced to leave town for selling the novel<ref name=pbs-4p2958/> to threatening letters sent to Stowe (including a package containing a slave's severed ear).<ref name=pbs-4p2958/> Many Southern writers, like Simms, soon wrote their own books in opposition to Stowe's novel.{{sfn|Ridgely|1960}}

Some critics highlighted Stowe's paucity of life-experience relating to Southern life, saying that it led her to create inaccurate descriptions of the region. For instance, she had never been to a Southern plantation. Stowe always said she based the characters of her book on stories she was told by runaway slaves in Cincinnati. It is reported that "She observed firsthand several incidents which galvanized her to write [the] famous anti-slavery novel. Scenes she observed on the Ohio River, including seeing a husband and wife being sold apart, as well as newspaper and magazine accounts and interviews, contributed material to the emerging plot."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg149.htm |title= The Classic Text: Harriett Beecher Stowe |publisher= University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Library |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516041527/http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg149.htm |archive-date=May 16, 2008 |access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref>

In response to these criticisms, in 1853 Stowe published ''[[A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'', an attempt to document the veracity of the novel's depiction of slavery.{{sfn|Ashland|2020}} In the book, Stowe discusses each of the major characters in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and cites "real life equivalents" to them while also mounting a more "aggressive attack on slavery in the South than the novel itself had".{{sfn|Stowe|1854}} Like the novel, ''A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was a best-seller, but although Stowe claimed ''A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin'' documented her previously consulted sources, she actually read many of the cited works only after the publication of her novel.{{sfn|Stowe|1854}}

[[File:Wikibruz24.jpg|thumb|left|A sculpture after an 1869 design by [[Louis Samain]] was installed in 1895 on [[Avenue Louise]] in [[Brussels]]. The scene—a runaway black slave and child attacked by dogs—was inspired by ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''.]]

''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' also created great interest in the United Kingdom. The first London edition appeared in May 1852 and sold 200,000 copies.<ref name=pbs-4p2958/> Some of this interest was due to [[anti-Americanism]] in Britain. As English lawyer [[Nassau William Senior]] argued, "The evil passions which ''Uncle Tom'' gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance, but national jealousy and national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of America—we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen. Our clergy hate her voluntary system—our [[Tories (British political party)|Tories]] hate her democrats—our [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]] hate her [[parvenu]]s—our [[Radicals (UK)|Radicals]] hate her litigiousness, her insolence, and her ambition. All parties hailed Mrs. Stowe as a revolter from the enemy... She taught us how to prove that democrats may be tyrants, that an aristocracy of caste is more oppressive than an aristocracy of station... Our pity for the victim is swallowed up by our hatred of the tyrant."{{sfn|Adams|2008|loc= quoting [[Nassau William Senior|Nassau Senior]] on p. 33}}

Stowe sent a copy of the book to [[Charles Dickens]], who wrote her in response: "I have read your book with the deepest interest and sympathy, and admire, more than I can express to you, both the generous feeling which inspired it, and the admirable power with which it is executed."{{sfn|Stone|1957|p= 188}} The historian and politician [[Thomas Babington Macaulay]] wrote in 1852 that "it is the most valuable addition that America has made to English literature."{{sfn|Rubinstein|2011|p=140}} [[Charles Francis Adams Sr.]], the American ambassador to Britain during the Civil War, argued later that "''Uncle Tom's Cabin''; or ''Life among the Lowly'', published in 1852, exercised, largely from fortuitous circumstances, a more immediate, considerable and dramatic world-influence than any other book ever printed."{{sfn|Adams|2018|p=79}}

[[Leo Tolstoy]] claimed that ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was a greater work than any play written by [[Shakespeare]] because it flowed from the love of God and man.<ref>{{cite book |last=MacFarquhar |first=Larissa |author-link=Larissa MacFarquhar |date=2015 |title=Strangers Drowning : Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |page=278 |isbn=9780143109785}}</ref>

===20th century and modern criticism===

In the 20th century, a number of writers attacked ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' not only for the stereotypes the novel had created about African-Americans but also because of "the utter disdain of the Tom character by the black community".{{sfn|Dinerstein|2009|p=83}} These writers included [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]] with his collection ''[[Uncle Tom's Children]]'' (1938) and [[Chester Himes]] with his 1943 short story "Heaven Has Changed".{{sfn|Dinerstein|2009|p=83}} [[Ralph Ellison]] also critiqued the book with his 1952 novel ''[[Invisible Man]],'' with Ellison figuratively killing Uncle Tom in the opening chapter.{{sfn|Dinerstein|2009|p=83}}

[[File:Uncle Tom and Eva, Staffordshire, England, 1855-1860, glazed and painted ceramic - Concord Museum - Concord, MA - DSC05597.JPG|thumb|''Uncle Tom and Eva'', a [[Staffordshire figure]] produced between 1855 and 1860]]

In 1945 [[James Baldwin]] published his influential and infamous critical essay "Everybody's Protest Novel".{{sfn|Shelby|2012|p=515}} In the essay, Baldwin described ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' as "a bad novel, having, in its self-righteousness, virtuous sentimentality".{{sfn|Baldwin|2017|p=1}} He argued that the novel lacked psychological depth, and that Stowe, "was not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer".{{sfn|Baldwin|2017|p=2}}<ref name="Rothstein">{{cite news|first=Edward |last=Rothstein |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/arts/23conn.html |title= Digging Through the Literary Anthropology of Stowe's Uncle Tom |work=[[The New York Times]] |date= October 23, 2006 |access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref> [[Edward Rothstein]] has claimed that Baldwin missed the point and that the purpose of the novel was "to treat slavery not as a political issue but as an individually human one – and ultimately a challenge to Christianity itself."<ref name="Rothstein"/>

[[George Orwell]] in his essay "[[Good Bad Books]]", first published in ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' in November 1945, claims that "perhaps the supreme example of the 'good bad' book is ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''. It is an unintentionally ludicrous book, full of preposterous melodramatic incidents; it is also deeply moving and essentially true; it is hard to say which quality outweighs the other." But he concludes "I would back ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' to outlive the complete works of [[Virginia Woolf]] or [[George Henry Moore (author)|George Moore]], though I know of no strictly literary test which would show where the superiority lies."{{sfn|Orwell|1968|p=21}}

The negative associations related to ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', in particular how the novel and associated plays [[#Creation_and_popularization_of_stereotypes|created and popularized racial stereotypes]], have to some extent obscured the book's historical impact as a "vital antislavery tool".{{sfn|Appiah|Gates|2005|p=544}} After the turn of the millennium, scholars such as [[Henry Louis Gates Jr.]] and [[Hollis Robbins]] have re-examined ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' in what has been called a "serious attempt to resurrect it as both a central document in American race relations and a significant moral and political exploration of the character of those relations."<ref name="Rothstein"/>

In China, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' experienced a revival of interest in the early 1960s.<ref name=":Gao">{{Cite book |last=Gao |first=Yunxiang |title=Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century |date=2021 |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |isbn=9781469664606 |location=Chapel Hill, NC}}</ref>{{Rp|page=55}} In the Chinese communist view of the book, Uncle Tom was interpreted as having been betrayed by his "Christian consciousness."<ref name=":Gao" />{{Rp|page=55}} In 1961, [[Sun Weishi]] directed a stage play adaptation of the book.<ref name=":Gao" />{{Rp|page=55}} The revival of interest in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' intersected with the translation and popularization of works by [[W. E. B. Du Bois]], who was viewed as having developed a new spirit of Black resistance.<ref name=":Gao" />{{Rp|pages=54–55}}

===Literary significance===
Generally recognized as the first best-selling novel,{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=161}} ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' greatly influenced development of not only [[American literature]] but also protest literature in general.{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=161}}{{sfn|Kabatchnik|2017|p=269}} Later books that owe a large debt to ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' include ''[[The Jungle]]'' by [[Upton Sinclair]] and ''[[Silent Spring]]'' by [[Rachel Carson]].{{sfn|Weinstein|2004|p=13}}

Despite this undisputed significance, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' has been called "a blend of children's [[fable]] and propaganda".<ref name="The Nation">{{cite news|first=Darryl Lorenzo|last=Wellington|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/uncle-toms-shadow/|title='Uncle Tom's Shadow|work=[[The Nation]]|date=December 25, 2006|access-date=October 18, 2020|archive-date=March 31, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190331124115/https://www.thenation.com/article/uncle-toms-shadow/|url-status=dead}}</ref> The novel has also been dismissed by several [[literary critics]] as "merely a sentimental novel";{{sfn|Gossett|1978|pp=123–124}} critic George Whicher stated in his ''Literary History of the United States'' that "Nothing attributable to Mrs. Stowe or her handiwork can account for the novel's enormous vogue; its author's resources as a purveyor of Sunday-school fiction were not remarkable. She had at most a ready command of broadly conceived melodrama, humor, and pathos, and of these popular sentiments she compounded her book."{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=126}}

Other critics, though, have praised the novel. [[Edmund Wilson]] stated that "To expose oneself in maturity to ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' may therefore prove a startling experience.  It is a much more impressive work than one has ever been allowed to suspect."{{sfn|Wilson|1977|p=134}} Jane Tompkins stated that the novel is one of the classics of American literature and wonders if many literary critics dismiss the book because it was simply too popular during its day.{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|pp=124–125}}