Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Harriet Beecher Stowe is the author of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Harriet was born in Connecticut in 1811, the daughter of Lyman Beecher. He was a persuasive preacher, theologian, a founder of the American Bible Society who was active in the anti slavery movement, and the father of thirteen children. When her father became president of Lane Theological Seminary in Ohio, she moved with him and met Calvin Stowe -- a professor and clergyman who fervently opposed slavery. He was nine years her senior and the widower of a dear friend of hers, Eliza Tyler. Their subsequent marriage in 1836 was born of the common grief they shared. Within two years, she had three children, increasing household responsibilities and financial worries as Calvin's salary from the college diminished. As a homemaker she lovingly and kindly cared for her children while she wrote for local magazines and papers. Although her first forty-one years were lived in gentile privation and anonymity, she quickly became a literary sensation when they published Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Success never lessened her need for her husband. Both encouraged and comforted each other as storms dampened their spiritual fires. Calvin encouraged her to establish a writing career, and served as her literary agent in both America and England. Mrs. Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin soon after passage of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which granted Southerners the right to pursue fugitive slaves into free states. This law aroused many abolitionists to action - and writing. Uncle Tom's cabin was taken place during the harsh slavery time in the U.S. The book has many different settings because of Tom being moved around so much. Uncle Tom's Cabin first starts off in Kentucky, then switches to New Orleans, but continues to flash back to scenes in Kentucky. St.