Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author born in 1811 in Connecticut. She is most famous for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852, which portrayed the harsh reality of slavery and helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War. Stowe wrote over 20 books and supported the Underground Railroad. She lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, Brunswick, Maine where she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Hartford, Connecticut for the last 23 years of her life. Stowe helped found the Hartford Art School and received honors including a postage stamp in her honor. She passed away in 1896.
My name is Phillis Wheatley, and I am the first black woman in America to publish a book. I was born around the year 1754 and I was 7 years old when slave traders captured me from my home in Africa and shipped me to Boston. There, Susanna and John Wheatley bought me as a slave.
My name is Phillis Wheatley, and I am the first black woman in America to publish a book. I was born around the year 1754 and I was 7 years old when slave traders captured me from my home in Africa and shipped me to Boston. There, Susanna and John Wheatley bought me as a slave.
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Drifting Toward
Disunion
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1854–1861
A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe
this government cannot endure permanently half
slave and half free.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 1858
The slavery question continued to churn thecauldron of controversy throughout the 1850s.
As moral temperatures rose, prospects for a peace-
ful political solution to the slavery issue simply
evaporated. Kansas Territory erupted in violence
between proslavery and antislavery factions in 1855.
Two years later the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott
decision invalidated the Missouri Compromise of
1820, which had imposed a shaky lid on the slavery
problem for more than a generation. Attitudes on
both sides progressively hardened. When in 1860
the newly formed Republican party nominated for
president Abraham Lincoln, an outspoken oppo-
nent of the further expansion of slavery, the stage
was set for all-out civil war.
Stowe and Helper:
Literary Incendiaries
Sectional tensions were further strained in 1852,
and later, by an inky phenomenon. Harriet Beecher
Stowe, a wisp of a woman and the mother of a half-
dozen children, published her heartrending novel
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Dismayed by the passage of the
Fugitive Slave Law, she was determined to awaken
the North to the wickedness of slavery by laying
bare its terrible inhumanity, especially the cruel
splitting of families. Her wildly popular book relied
on powerful imagery and touching pathos. “God
wrote it,’’ she explained in later years—a reminder
409
that the deeper sources of her antislavery senti-
ments lay in the evangelical religious crusades of
the Second Great Awakening.
The success of the novel at home and abroad
was sensational. Several hundred thousand copies
were published in the first year, and the totals soon
ran into the millions as the tale was translated into
more than a score of languages. It was also put on
the stage in “Tom shows” for lengthy runs. No other
novel in American history—perhaps in all history—
can be compared with it as a political force. To mil-
lions of people, it made slavery appear almost as
evil as it really was.
When Mrs. Stowe was introduced to President
Lincoln in 1862, he reportedly remarked with twin-
kling eyes, “So you’re the little woman who wrote
the book that made this great war.” The truth is that
Uncle Tom’s Cabin did help start the Civil War—and
win it. The South condemned that “vile wretch in
petticoats” when it learned that hundreds of thou-
sands of fellow Americans were reading and believ-
ing her “unfair” indictment. Mrs. Stowe had never
witnessed slavery at first hand in the Deep South,
but she had seen it briefly during a visit to Kentucky,
and she had lived for many years in Ohio, a center of
Underground Railroad activity.
Uncle Tom, endearing and enduring, left a pro-
found impression on the North. Uncounted thou-
sands of readers swore that henceforth they would
have nothing to do with the enforcement of the
Fugitive Slave Law. The tale was devou.
POEMS by Emily Dickinson· 1830-1886; one of the two most impor.docxstilliegeorgiana
POEMS by Emily Dickinson
· 1830-1886; one of the two most important figures (the other being Walt Whitman) in establishing the specific identity of AMERICAN POETRY (especially MODERN American poetry)
· from a prominent Amherst, Massachusetts, family (father a lawyer)
· After school (Amherst Academy and a year at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), she lived as a RECLUSE, almost never leaving the Dickinson family home.
· She remained close with her family, particularly her brother, and maintained several “friendships” via correspondences, most notably with the Boston writer and critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who eventually—POSTHUMOUSLY!—published her poems with the help of another of Emily’s friends, Mabel Todd Loomis.
· Only 7 of her poems were published—anonymously!—during her lifetime. THERE ARE 1,775! Not all of them reached print until 1955!
· eccentric punctuation: especially DASHES indicating emphasis and interruption
· influenced by the English Romantics, especially Keats, and the early Victorian poets, especially Elizabeth Barrett Browning
· a mixture of death, uncompromising truth, and playful humor
· ROMANTIC CHARACTERISTICS:
· sentimental melancholy
· importance/exceptionality of the poet
· the failure of knowledge/reason
· fascination with the grotesque
· mystical imagery
· unorthodox religious interpretation/beliefs
· wish to transcend worldly cares/priorities
· ROMANTIC INVERSIONS: American “Dark” Romanticism (according to literary critic Leslie Fiedler)
· disturbingly falling short of salvation (uncertainty or damnation, etc.)
· mocking the false comforts that sweet, picturesque imagery might provide
QUESTION #11:
Citing examples from her poems, discuss Dickinson’s Dark Romanticism. (3 paragraphs)
Walt Whitman
· 1819-1892; born in West Hills, Long Island, New York
· revolutionized American poetry: the long line, “catalogs,” frank subject matter, “free verse”
· responded to the call in Emerson’s “The Poet” (1842) for an all-encompassing American bard
· persona characteristics: amoral (even seeming to fatalistically excuse the atrocities associated with Manifest Destiny and colonially expansionist drive); representatively omnipresent (Transcendentally pantheistic); “American” universality and commonality represented sexually (as metaphor)
QUESTION #12:
How does both the form of Whitman’s poem and the imagery it uses reflect Emerson’s Transcendentalist call for an “American” poet?
Rebecca Harding Davis
· 1831-1910; born in Washington, Pennsylvania
· had a long career as both a fiction writer and a journalist
· “Life in the Iron-Mills” (1861) made her a literary celebrity; an early American literary example of combining REALISM, NATURALISM, and MUCK-RAKING
REALISM:
· mainly a reaction against the aesthetics and ideals of Romanticism, roughly surfacing as a consistent literary movement in the mid-19th century
· focus: a fidelity to actuality in its representation in literature (verisimilitude)
· focus ...
Black History Is American History Bhm 2009ojohnson1
This is the Black History Month 2009 presentation shown during this years event. These slides were also compiled in the Education Booklet provided at the event as well.
2. History
S Born June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, CT
S American abolitionist as well as author
S Wrote more than 20 books
S Supporter of the Underground Railroad
S Most famous novel is Uncle Tom‟s Cabin
3. Uncle Tom‟s Cabin
S In June 1851, the first
installment of UTC was
published in the National Era.
These installments were
published weekly until April 1,
1852.
S Book was published on March
20, 1852 by John P. Jewett.
S < 1 year it sold 300,000 copies.
4. Uncle Tom‟s Cabin
S Anti-slavery novel that some say “helped lay the groundwork
for the Civil War”
S Based on character “Uncle Tom”, an older suffering African
American slave whose stories portray the reality of slavery.
S Best-selling novel of 19th century and 2nd best-selling book after
the Bible.
S Unfortunately helped popularize some stereotypes about
African American‟s such as “mammy” and “pickaninny”
5. Hartford Art School
S Harriett served on the founding committee of Hartford Art
School.
S HAS located in what was the Wadsworth Athenaeum, first
public art museum in US
S In 1957 the school became University of Hartford in
Connecticut
6. Stowe‟s Landmarks
S Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati, Ohio
(father‟s home), Brunswick, Maine (where she lived while
writing Uncle Tom‟s Cabin), Hartford, CT (where she lived
her remaining 23 years)
S Marshall Key Home, Washington, KY. Stowe stayed here
to avoid the cholera epidemic in Cincinnati.
S Uncle Tom‟s Cabin Historic Site, Dresden, Ontario.
7. Honors
S “Feast Day” on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal
Church USA on July 1.
S June, 13, 2007 US Postal Service 75cent „Distinguished
American‟ series issued in Stowe‟s honor.
8. A Few of Harriett Stowe‟s
Creations
S Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
S Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swap (1856)
S A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853)
S Old Town Folks (1869)
S Palmetto Leaves (1873)
S The Poor Life (1890)
9. Stowe & Social Media
S Blogs: people are still blogging about Uncle Tom‟s Cabin
on sites such as edublogs.ord & blogspot.com
S Facebook Pages about Stowe, Museum.
S With 748 “likes”, HBS center is active on their Facebook
page, even offering trips to visit museums featuring
Stowe‟s work.
