Editing Harriet Beecher Stowe (section)

===''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and Civil War===
[[File:Alanson Fisher - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|Portrait of Stowe by Alanson Fisher, 1853 ([[National Portrait Gallery (United States)|National Portrait Gallery]])]]

The [[31st United States Congress|Congress]] passed the [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850]], prohibiting assistance to fugitives and strengthening sanctions even in free states. At the time, Stowe had moved with her family to [[Brunswick, Maine]], where her husband was now teaching at [[Bowdoin College]]. Their [[Harriet Beecher Stowe House (Brunswick, Maine)|home]] near the campus is now protected as a National Historic Landmark.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bowdoin.edu/stowe-house/|title=Harriet Beecher Stowe House|website=www.bowdoin.edu|language=en|access-date=September 24, 2018}}</ref> The Stowes were ardent critics of slavery and supported the [[Underground Railroad]], temporarily housing several fugitive slaves in their home. One fugitive from slavery, [[John Andrew Jackson]], wrote of hiding with Stowe in her house in Brunswick as he fled to Canada in his narrative titled ''The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina'' (London: Passmore & Albaster, 1862).<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ashton |first1=Susanna |title=The Genuine Article: Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Andrew Jackson |url=http://commonplace.online/article/genuine-article/ |website=Commonplace: A Journal of Early American Life |access-date=November 14, 2020}}</ref>

Stowe claimed to have had a vision of a dying slave during a communion service at Brunswick's First Parish Church, which inspired her to write his story.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A History of the First Parish Church in Brunswick, Maine |last=Ashby |first=Thompson Eldridge and Louise R. Helmreich|publisher=J.H. French |year=1969|location=Brunswick, Maine |pages=229}}</ref> What also likely allowed her to empathize with slaves was the loss of her eighteen-month-old son, Samuel Charles Stowe. She noted, "Having experienced losing someone so close to me, I can sympathize with all the poor, powerless slaves at the unjust auctions. You will always be in my heart Samuel Charles Stowe."<ref>Gershon, Noel (1976). ''Harriet Beecher Stowe: Biography''. New York: Henry Holt and Co.{{Page needed|date=June 2019}}</ref> On March 9, 1850, Stowe wrote to [[Gamaliel Bailey]], editor of the weekly anti-slavery journal ''[[The National Era]]'', that she planned to write a story about the problem of slavery: "I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak&nbsp;... I hope every woman who can write will not be silent."{{Sfn|Hedrick|1994|p=208}}

[[File:Portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852. (21452599131) (cropped).jpg|thumb|Daguerreotype portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852]]

Shortly after in June 1851, when she was 40, the first installment of ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' was published in serial form in the newspaper ''The National Era''. She originally used the subtitle "The Man That Was a Thing", but it was soon changed to "Life Among the Lowly".<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Installments were published weekly from June 5, 1851, to April 1, 1852.{{Sfn|Hedrick|1994|p=208}} For the newspaper serialization of her novel, Stowe was paid $400.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lyons|first=Martyn|title=Books: A Living History|year=2011|publisher=J. Paul Getty Museum|location=Los Angeles |page=143}}</ref> ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was published in book form on March 20, 1852, by John P. Jewett with an initial print run of 5,000 copies.<ref>McFarland, Philip. ''Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe''. New York: Grove Press, 2007: 80–81. {{ISBN|978-0-8021-4390-7}}.</ref> Each of its two volumes included three illustrations and a title-page designed by [[Hammatt Billings]].<ref>Parfait, Claire. ''The Publishing History of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852–2002''. Ashgate Publishing, 2007: 71–72. {{ISBN|978-0-7546-5514-5}}.</ref> In less than a year, the book sold an unprecedented 300,000 copies.<ref>Morgan, Jo-Ann. ''Uncle Tom's Cabin As Visual Culture''. University of Missouri Press, 2007: 136–137. {{ISBN|978-0-8262-1715-8}}</ref> By December, as sales began to wane, Jewett issued an inexpensive edition at {{Frac|37|1|2}} cents each to stimulate sales.<ref>Parfait, Claire. ''The Publishing History of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852–2002''. Ashgate Publishing, 2007: 78. {{ISBN|978-0-7546-5514-5}}.</ref> Sales abroad, as in Britain where the book was a great success, earned Stowe nothing as there was no international copyright agreement in place during that era.<ref>Lyons, Martyn. ''Books: A Living History''. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011. Chapter 4, p. 143.</ref> In 1853, Stowe undertook a lecture tour of Britain and, to make up the royalties that she could not receive there, the Glasgow New Association for the Abolition of Slavery set up Uncle Tom's Offering.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Mullen, Stephen.|title=It wisnae us: the truth about Glasgow and slavery|date=2009|publisher=Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland|others=Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. Glasgow Anti Racist Alliance.|isbn=978-1-873190-62-3|location=Edinburgh|pages=75|oclc=551393830}}</ref>

According to Daniel R. Vollaro, the goal of the book was to educate Northerners on the realistic horrors of the things that were happening in the South. The other purpose was to try to make people in the South feel more empathetic towards the people they were forcing into slavery.<ref>Vollaro, Daniel R. "Lincoln, Stowe, and the 'Little Woman/Great War' Story: The Making, And Breaking, Of A Great American Anecdote". ''Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association'' 30.1 (2015).</ref> The book's emotional portrayal of the effects of slavery on individuals captured the nation's attention. Stowe showed that slavery touched all of society, beyond the people directly involved as masters, traders and slaves. Her novel added to the debate about abolition and slavery, and aroused opposition in the South. In the South, Stowe was depicted as out of touch, arrogant, and guilty of slander. Within a year, 300 babies in Boston alone were named [[Uncle Tom's Cabin#Eva|Eva (one of the book's characters)]], and a play based on the book opened in New York in November.<ref>Morgan, Jo-Ann. ''Uncle Tom's Cabin As Visual Culture''. University of Missouri Press, 2007: 137. {{ISBN|978-0-8262-1715-8}}</ref> Southerners quickly responded with numerous works of what are now called [[Anti-Tom literature|anti-Tom novels]], seeking to portray Southern society and slavery in more positive terms. Many of these were bestsellers, although none matched the popularity of Stowe's work, which set publishing records.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}

After the start of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], Stowe traveled to the capital, Washington, D.C., where she met President Abraham Lincoln on November 25, 1862.<ref>McFarland, Philip. ''Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe''. New York: Grove Press, 2007: 163. {{ISBN|978-0-8021-4390-7}}</ref> Stowe's daughter, Hattie, reported, "It was a very droll time that we had at the White house I assure you&nbsp;... I will only say now that it was all very funny&nbsp;– and we were ready to explode with laughter all the while."{{sfn|Hedrick|1994|p=306}} What Lincoln said is a minor mystery. Her son later reported that Lincoln greeted her by saying, "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war",<ref>{{cite book|author1=David B. Sachsman|author2=S. Kittrell Rushing|author3=Roy Morris|title=Memory and Myth: The Civil War in Fiction and Film from Uncle Tom's Cabin to Cold Mountain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bTSEuddLtlUC&pg=PA8|year=2007|publisher=Purdue University Press|page=8|isbn=978-1-55753-439-2}}</ref> but this story has been found to be apocryphal.<ref>Vollaro, Daniel R. "Lincoln, Stowe, and the 'Little Woman/Great War' Story: The Making, And Breaking, Of A Great American Anecdote". ''Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association'' 30.1 (2015).</ref> Her own accounts are vague, including the letter reporting the meeting to her husband: "I had a real funny interview with the President."{{sfn|Hedrick|1994|p=306}}