The The Publication Publication

of of Uncle Uncle Tom’s Tom’s CabinCabin

Natia SearlesNatia Searles

Book was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a northern white American abolitionist and teacher

Was an influential book on slavery published 1852

Book tells about a black male slave’s life while putting you in the

reality of slavery.

Stowe was inspired to create Uncle Tom's Cabin by the autobiography of Josiah Henson, a black slave who lived and worked on a 3,700

acre tobacco plantation.

First published in a periodical then turned into a book

It was the second most popular book of the year it was published. Only the Bible sold more copies.

Tensions between North and South

This book pushed more people to become abolitionists – to care about slavery.

“Into the emotion-charged atmosphere of mid-nineteenth-century America Uncle Tom’s Cabin exploded like a bombshell…the social impact of

Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since.”

—Printing and the Mind of Man,   Edited by John Carter & Peter H. Muir

Sources: Aspects of the Publishing History

of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1851-1900

http://specialcollections.vassar.edu/exhibit-highlights/stowe/essay2.html

History Today June 1, 2001 Cavendish, Richard History Today Ltd (secondary source)