Illustrations from Uncle Tom’s Cabin | BRIdge from the Past

0:03 Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Bridge from the Past art Across US history. I’m your host, Mary, and this series is for students like you to get ahead in your US. History class by using art to think about questions that don’t always have easy answers. Today we’re looking at illustrations from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel uncle Tom’s Cabin.

0:25 When President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, he allegedly said, and I quote, so this is the little woman that made this great war. While we can’t prove if he actually said this, it does hint at how influential Stowe’s novel was at the time. What was the role of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

0:46 in the national conversation regarding slavery? What is its legacy? Has it changed over time? How should we remember Uncle Tom’s Cabin today? Let’s jump in and see. So here we have the cover page of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The full title is Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly. And again, this was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

1:08 It was published as a novel in 1852. We’re in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War. It’s published in Boston and Ohio, where the printer is located in Boston, Ohio. So this is definitely Boston anyway. Northern Territory, Ohio. Still, I would consider that to be pretty northern.

1:30 And if we can zoom in on the image here, I can see what looks like a family. We have a woman and a man, and it looks like children in a pretty basic dwelling. They’re African American. The man appears to be holding honestly, it kind of looks like a golf club, but I’m assuming it’s not a golf club.

1:51 It’s probably some sort of farming implement. Perhaps it’s a hoe. So this looks like a family, an enslaved family. So I have some questions just from the cover here. So who is Harriet Beecher Stowe? Why did she write this? And what’s the connection to Abraham Lincoln’s apocryphal quote about causing the Great War,

2:13 the Civil War? So before I can go any further, it would be really helpful to have some context. So what do I need to know before I can think about the importance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the conversation regarding slavery? So who is Harriet Beecher Stowe? So Harriet Beecher Stowe was actually the daughter of a famous New England preacher and reformer.

2:36 So she was not African American. She was never enslaved. But from the time she was very small and into her adult life, her family very much moved in these circles that were involved in reform movements, specifically the abolition movement and temperance movements. She marries a professor, Calvin Stowe, and she and her husband are still involved in these reform movements.

2:59 So they are against slavery. They find it evil. They want it to stop. And Harriet Beecher Stowe is pretty remarkable in that she’s an established writer before Uncle Tom’s Cabin comes along. So she’s living at a time that can be called the American Renaissance of the mid 19th century. So print materials like books, newspapers,

3:22 pamphlets, they’re more widely available and they’re more easily distributed. And a big part of this American Renaissance is this idea of the sentimental novel, so novel, that is supposed to appeal to your virtue, to your morals. And that is what Harriet Beecher Stowe is known for. And that is what Uncle Tom’s Cabin is going to be.

3:42 So we have a woman who is involved in the abolitionist movement. She is a writer. She’s supplementing her husband’s income as a professor by writing short stories, by writing essays. And in 1849, not long before Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published, she actually loses her 18 month old son to an echolar epidemic.

4:02 And the grief that she feels that losing her son sort of is extremely overpowering. So that’s Harriet Peterstow sort of zoom out a little bit to the big picture in the 1850s. The nation is very divided over the issue of slavery. The Compromise of 1850 was really meant to just do that compromise, but it doesn’t really work out too well.

4:24 A big part of the Compromise of 1850 is the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which wasn’t really new as a concept. The first Fugitive Slave Act has passed in 1793. But this Slave Act has severe punishments for anyone who hinders slave catchers who doesn’t help them. Anyone who hides an enslaved person or

4:46 harbors them could face severe punishments. So this Puget of Slave Act really creates a huge dilemma for many Northerners who felt like they’re suddenly being forced into perpetuating slavery. And for Harriet Beecher Stowe, who’s of this reform mindset, this is sort of the last straw. And again, she is already an author.

5:08 So her publisher actually asks her, can you paint a word picture of slavery? I think that’s such a great phrase. And that is where we get Uncle Tom’s Cabin. So it’s published serially or in little episodes, in an anti slavery newspaper. And then it’s published as a novel in 1851. And it is an instant bestseller. It’s widely read throughout the United States and abroad.

5:30 It’s actually banned in the south. Why is this such a bestseller? Well, let’s jump in and see. So the central character is the figure of Uncle Tom, and there are other characters and other plotlines in the story. But Tom is sort of the central figure, and Tom is this sort of he’s virtuous, he’s hardworking. He has almost a superhuman faith.

5:55 You want to root for Tom, and tragedy keeps befalling Tom because of the system of slavery. So in this picture, Tom is sitting with Eva, who is the young daughter of his owner. And because of his devotion to little Eva, eva gets her father to promise to free Tom, but he dies before that ends up happening. And like I said, tragedy ends up befalling Tom.

6:18 So in the next image here, you have Cassie so Cassie is an enslaved woman, ministering to Uncle Tom after his whipping. So Tom is, despite his sort of hardworking and his virtue, he’s beat unmercifully, and he dies because of this. Again, if you think of this idea of a sentimental novel,

6:41 Harriet Beecher Stowe still wants you to see, like, to feel the sadness, to anger, the grief at what’s happening to Tom and those around him. I’m going to go to another image from the story. And this is Eliza comes to tell Uncle Tom that he is sold and she is running away to save her child. So here is Eliza.

7:02 She’s another character in this novel. She’s also enslaved. Tom is here, and she’s running away to save her child. So the character of Eliza is, again, this idea of a mother. And what does it feel like to a mother to lose her child? Eliza has already lost two children, and when she finds out she could potentially lose her remaining

7:24 child, she just makes the decision to run away. And when Harry Beecher Stowe lost her child, she compared it to the grief of an enslaved mother losing her child. And that’s actually something that crops up in slave narratives at the time. So Frederick Douglas writes about how he was purposefully separated from his mother.

7:45 Solomon Northrop writes in Twelve Years a Slave. He describes a heartbreaking scene of a mother being separated from her soul, away from her children, or children being sold away from her. So there’s this idea of appealing to how horrific the system of slavery is and how it’s wrecking families. So this picture comes from an actual theater production of Uncle Tom’s cast.

8:09 And so not only was the novel read, but it’s actually turned into a play, and it’s quite popular as a play. And you have here, again, this image of Eliza escaping with her child. And it’s a very dramatic scene over the ice. She does get away, spoiler, but you can see, like, the slave catchers and the dogs are being

8:29 unleashed on this woman and her babies, which is this awful, awful scene. And Harriet Beecher Stowe is trying to communicate the inhumanity of what slavery is. So at the time, as I said, this was the best seller. And Frederick Douglas, who actually spoke to Harriet Beecher Stowe about portions

8:49 of the novel, called it a touching but too truthful tale of slavery. But over time, what happens is that Uncle Tom’s Cabin sort of creates and in some cases perpetuate stereotypes of African Americans. So Uncle Tom in particular, to be called for an African American man, to be called an Uncle Tom, is an insult because it’s almost like

9:12 you’re a submissive person who always gives in to white people. And so there’s definitely sort of a mixed legacy over what was intended by Harry Beecher Stowe, what people have thought of the novel over the years. So it’s a really interesting conversation about what was its intent how was it received? How is it received in more modern times?

9:37 So now I’m going to kick it over to you. What do you think? How should Uncle Tom’s Cabin be remembered? We learned that Uncle Tom’s Cabin did not cause the Civil War, but the book was certainly an important part of the national conversation on slavery in the 1850s and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Particular was a tipping point for Stowe and for many other Northerners.

9:59 And over the years, African American writers and scholars have had differing views on the legacy of the novel, but it’s reached when it was published in 1851 and 1852 really can’t be denied. I would really love to know what you guys think. So please let us know in the comments if you learned something.

10:22 Please like this video. And be sure to subscribe to Channel. We’ll be publishing other videos and contests and resources to help you through the school year. I will be back soon with another image to help us think about the complexity of American history. So until then, everybody take care.