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{{Short description|1852 novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe}}
{{About|the mid-19th-century novel}}
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{{Infobox book
| name              = Uncle Tom's Cabin
| title_orig        = Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly.
| image             = UncleTomsCabinCover.jpg
| alt               = 
| caption           = Title page for Volume I of the first edition of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1852)
| author            = [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]
| illustrator       = [[Hammatt Billings]]
| country           = United States
| genre             = Novel
| oclc              = 1077982310
| dewey             = 813.3
| congress          = PS2954 .U5
| language          = English
| published         = March 20, 1852 (two volumes)
| publisher         = [[John P. Jewett]] and Company
| publisher2        = after serialization in ''[[The National Era]]'' beginning June 5, 1851
| followed_by       = [[A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin]]
}}
'''''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly''''' is an [[anti-slavery]] novel by American author [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]. Published in two [[Volume (bibliography)|volumes]] in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and [[Slavery in the United States|slavery in the U.S.]], and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [[American Civil War]]".{{sfn|Kaufman|2006|p= [https://archive.org/details/civilwaramerican00kauf/page/n32 18]}}{{sfn|Painter|2000|p= 245}}{{sfn|DeLombard|2012}}

Stowe, a [[Connecticut]]-born teacher at the [[Hartford Female Seminary]], was part of the religious [[Beecher family]] and an active [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]]. She wrote the [[sentimental novel]] to depict the reality of slavery while also asserting that [[Christian love]] could overcome slavery.{{sfn|Kurian|2010|p=580}}{{sfn|de Rosa|2003|loc= On p. 122, de Rosa quotes Tompkins 1985, p. 145 that Stowe's strategy was to destroy slavery through the "saving power of Christian love".}}{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|loc= On p. 141, Tompkins writes "Stowe conceived her book as an instrument for bringing about the day when the world would be ruled not by force, but by Christian love."}} The novel focuses on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black [[slave]] around whom the stories of the other characters revolve.

In the United States, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19th century, following the Bible.{{sfn|DiMaggio|2014|p= 15}}{{sfn|Smith|2001|p=221}} It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s.{{sfn|Goldner|2001|p= 82}} The influence attributed to the book was so great that a likely [[wikt:apocryphal|apocryphal]] story arose of [[Abraham Lincoln]] meeting Stowe at the start of the Civil War and declaring, "So this is the little lady who started this great war."{{sfn|Stowe|1911|p=203}}{{sfn|Vollaro|2009}}

The book and the [[Tom show|plays]] it inspired helped popularize a number of negative [[Stereotypes of African Americans|stereotypes about black people]],{{sfn|Hulser|2003}}{{sfn|Jamieson|2018|p=??}}{{sfn|DeLombard|2012}} including that of the namesake character "[[Uncle Tom]]". The term came to be associated with an excessively subservient person.{{sfn|Jones|2019|pp=1465–1467}} These later associations with ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' have, to an extent, overshadowed the historical effects of the book as a "vital antislavery tool".{{sfn|Appiah|Gates|2005|p=544}} Nonetheless, the novel remains a "landmark" in protest literature,{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=161}} with later books such as ''[[The Jungle]]'' by [[Upton Sinclair]] and ''[[Silent Spring]]'' by [[Rachel Carson]] owing a large debt to it.{{sfn|Weinstein|2004|p=13}}

==Sources==
[[File:StowePainting.jpg|thumb|upright|An [[engraving]] of [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]] from 1872, based on an oil painting by [[Alonzo Chappel]]]]
Stowe, a [[Connecticut]]-born teacher at the [[Hartford Female Seminary]] and an active abolitionist, wrote the novel as a response to the passage, in 1850, of the second [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850|Fugitive Slave Act]]. Much of the book was composed at [[Harriet Beecher Stowe House (Brunswick, Maine)|her house]] in [[Brunswick, Maine]], where her husband, [[Calvin Ellis Stowe]], taught at his ''[[alma mater]]'', [[Bowdoin College]].{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 310}}{{sfn|Gatta|2015|p= 500}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/me1.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070910090114/http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/me1.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 10, 2007 |title=Harriet Beecher Stowe House |publisher= National Park Service |access-date= March 10, 2022}}.</ref>

Stowe was partly inspired to create ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' by the [[slave narrative]] ''[[The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself]]'' (1849).{{sfn|Oertel|2020|p=465}} [[Josiah Henson|Henson]], a formerly enslaved black man, had lived and worked on a {{cvt|3700|acre|km2|adj=on}} [[Plantations in the American South|plantation]] in [[North Bethesda, Maryland]], owned by Isaac Riley.<ref name="HensonBio">{{cite book |url=https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1500325 |author= Vicary, Elizabeth Zoe |title=Henson, Josiah (15 June 1789–05 May 1883) |publisher= American National Biography Online, Oxford University Press |date= January 12, 2006 |doi= 10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1500325 |isbn= 978-0-19-860669-7 |access-date= April 23, 2022}}</ref> Henson escaped slavery in 1830 by fleeing to the [[Upper Canada|Province of Upper Canada]] (now [[Ontario]]), where he helped other fugitive slaves settle and become self-sufficient.<ref name="HensonBio" />

Stowe was also inspired by the posthumous biography of [[Phebe Ann Jacobs]], a devout [[Congregational church|Congregationalist]] of [[Brunswick, Maine]].{{sfn|Hovet|1979|p=270}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Summary of Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/summary.html |access-date=2021-11-25 |website=docsouth.unc.edu}}</ref> Born on a slave plantation in [[Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey]], Jacobs was enslaved for most of her life, including by the president of Bowdoin College.{{sfn|Hovet|1979|pp=267-68}}<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=Mrs. T. C. Upham Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs. |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/menu.html |access-date=2022-02-10 |website=docsouth.unc.edu}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Society |first=New Jersey Historical |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3bSfAAAAMAAJ&dq=Maria+Suhm+Malleville&pg=PA138 |title=Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society |date=1919 |publisher=New Jersey Historical Society |language=en}}</ref><ref name=Bowdoin>{{Cite web |date=2021-01-28 |title=Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs, or, "Happy Phebe" by Mrs. T.C. Upham, c. 1850 |url=https://courses.bowdoin.edu/there-is-a-woman-in-every-color-2021/labor-force/narrative-of-phebe-ann-jacobs-or-happy-phebe/ |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Bowdoin College Museum of Art - There Is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art |language=en-US}}</ref> In her final years, Jacobs lived as a free woman, laundering clothes for Bowdoin students. She achieved respect from her community due to her devout religious beliefs,<ref name=Bowdoin/> and her funeral was widely attended.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Old |first=David TreadwellJust a Little |date=2021-06-18 |title=David Treadwell: Pine Grove Cemetery celebrates 200th anniversary |url=https://www.pressherald.com/2021/06/18/david-treadwell-pine-grove-cemetery-celebrates-200th-anniversary/ |access-date=2022-07-21 |website=Press Herald}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Upham |first=T. C. |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/upham/summary.html |title=Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs |publisher=J. S. Stewart |year=1850}}</ref>

Another source Stowe used as research for ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was ''[[American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses]]'', a volume co-authored by [[Theodore Dwight Weld]] and the [[Grimké sisters]].{{sfn|Ashland|2020}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/65/we/Weld-The.html|title=Weld, Theodore Dwight|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090225213915/http://www.bartleby.com/65/we/Weld-The.html|archive-date=February 25, 2009|access-date=May 15, 2007 |publisher= The Columbia Encyclopedia |edition= Sixth |date= 2001–2005 }}</ref> Stowe also conducted interviews with people who escaped slavery.{{sfn|Snodgrass|2015|p= 256}} Stowe mentioned a number of these inspirations and sources in ''[[A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' (1853).{{sfn|Ashland|2020}} This non-fiction book was intended to not only verify Stowe's claims about slavery but also point readers to the many "publicly available documents"{{sfn|Ashland|2020}} detailing the horrors of slavery.{{sfn|Stowe|1854}}<ref name="ReactionKey">{{cite web |
url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/white-southerners-said-uncle-toms-cabin-was-fake-news-180962518/ |title= White Southerners Said 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' Was Fake News: So its author published a 'key' to what's true in the novel |first= Kat |last=Eschner |work= Smithsonian Magazine |date= March 20, 2017 |access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref>

==Publication==
[[File:Uncle Tom's Cabin 1st Publication, National Era, 5 Jun 1851.jpg|thumb|First appearance of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' as serialized in ''[[The National Era]]'' (June 5, 1851)]]
''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' first appeared as a 40-week serial in ''[[The National Era]]'', an abolitionist periodical, starting with the June 5, 1851, issue. It was originally intended as a shorter narrative that would run for only a few weeks. Stowe expanded the story significantly, however, and it was instantly popular, such that protests were sent to the ''Era'' office when she missed an issue.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|p=[https://archive.org/details/mostfamousmanina00debb/page/261 261]}} The final installment was released in the April 1, 1852, issue of ''Era''. Stowe arranged for the story's copyright to be registered with the [[United States District Court for the District of Maine]]. She renewed her copyright in 1879 and the work entered the [[public domain in the United States|public domain]] on May 12, 1893.{{sfn|Winship|2010|pp=86–87}}

While the story was still being serialized, the publisher [[John P. Jewett]] contracted with Stowe to turn ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' into a book.{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 313}} Convinced the book would be popular, Jewett made the unusual decision (for the time) to have six full-page illustrations by [[Hammatt Billings]] engraved for the first printing.<ref name=Illustrations>{{cite web |url=http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/uncletom/illustra/52illf.html |title= First Edition Illustrations |work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 21, 2022}}</ref> Published in book form on March 20, 1852, the novel sold 3,000&nbsp;copies on that day alone,{{sfn|Applegate|2006|p=[https://archive.org/details/mostfamousmanina00debb/page/261 261]}} and soon sold out its complete print run.{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 314}} In the first year after it was published, 300,000&nbsp;copies of the book were sold in the United States.<ref>{{cite news |first=Geoffrey |last=Wheatcroft |title=The Cousins' War: review of Amanda Foreman, 'A World on Fire' |work=[[The New York Times]] Book Review |date=July 3, 2011 |page= 1}}</ref> Eight printing presses, running incessantly, could barely keep up with the demand.{{sfn|Nudelman|2004|p=19}}

By mid-1853, sales of the book dramatically decreased{{sfn|Winship|2010|p=86}} and Jewett went out of business during the [[Panic of 1857]].{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 323}} In June 1860, the right to publish ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' passed to the Boston firm [[Ticknor and Fields]],{{sfn|Winship|1999|p= 324}} which put the book back in print in November 1862. After that demand began to yet again increase.{{sfn|Winship|1999|pp= 324–325}}<ref name="PublicationHistory">{{cite web |url=http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/interpret/exhibits/winship/winship.html |title= Uncle Tom's Cabin: History of the Book in the 19th-Century United States |first= Michael |last=Winship|work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 21, 2022 |date= 2007}} Derived from a presentation at the June 2007 Uncle Tom's Cabin in the Web of Culture conference, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and presented by the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center (Hartford, CT) and the Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture Project at the University of Virginia.</ref> [[Houghton Mifflin Company]] acquired the rights from Ticknor in 1878.{{sfn|Winship|2010|p=85}} In 1879, a new edition of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was released, repackaging the novel as an "American classic".<ref name="PublicationHistory"/> Through the 1880s until its copyright expired, the book served as a mainstay and reliable source of income for Houghton Mifflin.{{sfn|Winship|2010|p=86}} By the end of the nineteenth century, the novel was widely available in a large number of editions<ref name="PublicationHistory"/> and in the United States it became the second best-selling book of that century after the Bible.{{sfn|DiMaggio|2014|p= 15}}

''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' sold equally well in Britain; the first London edition appeared in May 1852 and sold 200,000&nbsp;copies.<ref name=pbs-4p2958/> In a few years, over 1.5&nbsp;million copies of the book were in circulation in Britain, although most of these were [[Copyright infringement|infringing]] copies (a similar situation occurred in the United States).{{sfn|Holohan|2011|pp= 27–28}} By 1857, the novel had been translated into 20 languages.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://bindings.lib.ua.edu/gallery/uncletom.html |title=Uncle Tom's Cabin: A 19th-Century Bestseller |publisher=The University of Alabama |access-date=June 14, 2012}}</ref> Translator [[Lin Shu]] published the first Chinese translation in 1901, making it the first American novel translated into that language.{{sfn|Jie|1993|p=522}}

==Plot==

===Eliza escapes with her son; Tom sold "down the river"===
[[File:ElizaEngraving.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A full-page illustration by [[Hammatt Billings]] for the first edition of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', 1852. Eliza tells Uncle Tom that he has been sold and she is running away to save her child.]]

The book opens with a [[Kentucky]] farmer named Arthur Shelby facing the loss of his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife Emily Shelby believe that they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise the needed funds by selling two of them—Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby's maid Eliza—to Mr. Haley, a coarse slave trader. Emily Shelby is averse to this idea because she had promised her maid that her child would never be sold; Emily's son, George Shelby, hates to see Tom go because he sees the man as his friend and mentor.

When Eliza overhears Mr. and Mrs. Shelby discussing plans to sell Tom and Harry, Eliza determines to run away with her son. The novel states that Eliza made this decision because she fears losing her only surviving child (she had already [[miscarriage|miscarried]] two children). Eliza departs that night, leaving a note of apology to her mistress. She later makes a dangerous crossing over the ice of the Ohio River to escape her pursuers.

As Tom is sold, Mr. Haley takes him to a [[riverboat]] on the [[Mississippi River]] and from there Tom is to be transported to a slave market. While on board, Tom meets Eva, an angelic little white girl. They quickly become friends. Eva falls into the river and Tom dives into the river to save her life. Being grateful to Tom, Eva's father Augustine St. Clare buys him from Haley and takes him with the family to their home in New Orleans. Tom and Eva begin to relate to one another because of the deep Christian faith they both share.

===Eliza's family hunted; Tom's life with St. Clare===
[[File:TomEva.jpg|thumb|An illustration of Tom and Eva by Hammatt Billings for the 1853 deluxe edition of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'']]

During Eliza's escape, she meets up with her husband George Harris, who had run away previously. They decide to attempt to reach Canada but are tracked by Tom Loker, a slave hunter hired by Mr. Haley. Eventually Loker and his men trap Eliza and her family, causing George to shoot him in the side. Worried that Loker may die, Eliza convinces George to bring the slave hunter to a nearby [[Quaker]] settlement for medical treatment.

Back in [[New Orleans]], St. Clare debates slavery with his Northern cousin Ophelia who, while opposing slavery, is prejudiced against black people. St. Clare, however, believes he is not biased, even though he is a slave owner. In an attempt to show Ophelia that her prejudiced views against black people are wrong, St. Clare purchases Topsy, a young black slave, and asks Ophelia to educate her.

After Tom has lived with the St. Clares for two years, Eva grows very ill. Before she dies she experiences a vision of [[heaven]], which she shares with the people around her. As a result of her death and vision, the other characters resolve to change their lives, with Ophelia promising to throw off her personal prejudices against blacks, Topsy saying she will better herself, and St. Clare pledging to free Tom.

===Tom sold to Simon Legree===
Before St. Clare can follow through on his pledge, he dies after being stabbed outside a tavern. His wife reneges on her late husband's vow and sells Tom at auction to a vicious plantation owner named Simon Legree. Tom is taken to rural [[Louisiana]] with other new slaves including Emmeline, whom Simon Legree has purchased to use as a [[Sexual slavery|sex slave]].

[[File:CassyTom.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A full-page illustration by Hammatt Billings for the first edition of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', 1852. Cassy, another of Legree's slaves, ministers to Uncle Tom after his whipping.]]

Legree begins to hate Tom when Tom refuses Legree's order to whip his fellow slave. Legree beats Tom viciously and resolves to crush his new slave's faith in [[God in Christianity|God]]. Despite Legree's cruelty, Tom refuses to stop reading his Bible and comforting the other slaves as best he can. While at the plantation, Tom meets Cassy, another slave whom Legree used as a sex slave. Cassy tells her story to Tom. She was previously separated from her son and daughter when they were sold. She became pregnant again but killed the child because she could not tolerate having another child separated from her.

Tom Loker, changed after being healed by the Quakers, returns to the story. He has helped George, Eliza, and Harry enter Canada from [[Lake Erie]] and become free. In Louisiana, Uncle Tom almost succumbs to hopelessness as his faith in God is tested by the hardships of the plantation. He has two visions, one of Jesus and one of Eva, which renew his resolve to remain a faithful Christian, even unto death.

He encourages Cassy to escape, which she does, taking Emmeline with her. When Tom refuses to tell Legree where Cassy and Emmeline have gone, Legree orders his overseers to kill Tom. As Tom is dying, he forgives the overseers who savagely beat him. Humbled by the character of the man they have killed, both men become Christians. George Shelby, Arthur Shelby's son, arrives to buy Tom's freedom, but Tom dies shortly after they meet.

===Final section===
On their boat ride to freedom, Cassy and Emmeline meet George Harris' sister Madame de Thoux and accompany her to Canada. Madame de Thoux and George Harris were separated in their childhood. Cassy discovers that Eliza is her long-lost daughter who was sold as a child. Now that their family is together again, they travel to France and eventually [[Liberia]], the African nation created for former American slaves. George Shelby returns to the Kentucky farm, where after his father's death, he frees all his slaves. George Shelby urges them to remember Tom's sacrifice every time they look at his cabin. He decides to lead a pious Christian life just as Uncle Tom did.

==Major characters==

[[File:legree.png|thumb|Simon Legree assaults Uncle Tom.]]
[[File:Edwin Longsden Long - Uncle Tom and Little Eva.JPG|thumb|''[[Uncle Tom and Little Eva (painting)|Uncle Tom and Little Eva]]'', painting by [[Edwin Longsden Long]], 1866]]
*[[Uncle Tom]], the title character, was initially seen as a noble, long-suffering Christian slave.{{sfn|Jones|2019|pp=1465–1467}} In more recent years, his name has become an epithet directed towards African-Americans who are accused of [[selling out]] to whites.{{sfn|Jones|2019|pp=1465–1467}} Stowe intended Tom to be a "noble hero" and a praiseworthy person.{{sfn|Rosenthal|2003|p=31}} Throughout the book, far from allowing himself to be exploited, Tom stands up for his beliefs and refuses to betray friends and family.{{sfn|Jones|2019|pp=1465–1467}}
*Eliza is a slave who serves as a personal maid to Mrs. Shelby. She escapes to the North with her five-year-old son Harry after he is sold to Mr. Haley. Her husband, George, eventually finds Eliza and Harry in [[Ohio]] and emigrates with them to Canada, then France, and finally Liberia.{{sfn|Castronovo|2014|p=147}} The character Eliza was inspired by an account given at [[Lane Theological Seminary]] in Cincinnati by [[John Rankin (abolitionist)|John Rankin]] to Stowe's husband Calvin, a professor at the school. According to Rankin, in February 1838, a young slave woman, Eliza Harris, had escaped across the frozen [[Ohio River]] to the town of [[Ripley, Ohio|Ripley]] with her child in her arms and stayed at his house on her way farther north.{{sfn|Hagedorn|2002|pp=135–139}}
*Evangeline "Eva" St. Clare is the daughter of Augustine St. Clare. Eva enters the narrative when Uncle Tom is traveling via [[steamship]] to New Orleans to be sold, and he rescues the five- or six-year-old girl from drowning. Eva begs her father to buy Tom, and he becomes the head coachman at the St. Clare house. He spends most of his time with the angelic Eva. Eva often talks about love and forgiveness, convincing the dour slave girl Topsy that she deserves love. She even touches the heart of her Aunt Ophelia.{{sfn|Szczesiul|1996|pp=66–68}} Eventually Eva falls [[terminal illness|terminally ill]]. Before dying, she gives a lock of her hair to each of the slaves, telling them that they must become Christians so that they may see each other in Heaven. On her deathbed, she convinces her father to free Tom, but because of circumstances the promise never materializes.{{sfn|Wright|2021|p=387}}  
*Simon Legree is a cruel slave owner—a Northerner by birth—whose name has become synonymous with greed and cruelty.{{sfn|Louis|DeSimone|2014|p=102}} He is arguably the novel's main [[antagonist]]. His goal is to demoralize Tom and break him of his religious faith; he eventually orders Tom whipped to death out of frustration for his slave's unbreakable belief in God. The novel reveals that, as a young man, he had abandoned his sickly mother for a life at sea and ignored her letter to see her one last time at her deathbed. He sexually exploits Cassy, who despises him, and later sets his designs on Emmeline.{{sfn|Berman|2000|pp=332–335}} It is unclear if Legree is based on any actual individuals. Reports surfaced in the late 1800s that Stowe had in mind a wealthy cotton and sugar plantation owner named [[Meredith Calhoun]],<ref>{{cite news |title=Reconstructing Reconstruction |first= Eric |last=Foner |newspaper= The Washington Post |date= March 30, 2008 |page= E03}}</ref>{{sfn|Keith|2009|pp=27–29}} who settled on the [[Red River of the South|Red River]] north of [[Alexandria, Louisiana]].{{sfn|Keith|2009|pp=26–27}} Rev. [[Josiah Henson]], inspiration for the character of Uncle Tom, said that Legree was modeled after Bryce Lytton,{{sfn|Brandt|1990|p=23}} "who broke my arm and maimed me for life."{{sfn|Jaynes|2005|p= 834}}

==Literary themes and theories==

===Major themes===

''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' is dominated by a single theme: the evil and immorality of slavery.{{sfn|Allen|2004|loc=p. 24 states that "Stowe held specific beliefs about the 'evils' of slavery and the role of Americans in resisting it." The book then quotes [[Ann Douglas (historian)|Ann Douglas]] describing how Stowe saw slavery as a sin}} While Stowe weaves other subthemes throughout her text, such as the [[moral authority]] of motherhood and the power of Christian love,{{sfn|Kurian|2010|p=580}} she emphasizes the connections between these and the horrors of slavery. Stowe sometimes changed the story's voice so she could give a "[[homily]]" on the destructive nature of slavery{{sfn|McPherson|1997|p=30}} (such as when a white woman on the steamboat carrying Tom further south states, "The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages of feelings and affections—the separating of families, for example.").<ref>{{cite book |title= Uncle Tom's Cabin |first=Harriet Beecher |last=Stowe |publisher= [[Vintage Books]] |edition= Modern Library |year= 1991 |page=150 |isbn=978-0679602002}}</ref> One way Stowe showed the evil of slavery<ref name=pbs-4p2958/>  was how this "peculiar institution" forcibly separated families from each other.{{sfn|McPherson|1997|p=29}}

[[File:FugitivesSafe.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|"The fugitives are safe in a free land." Illustration by Hammatt Billings for ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', first edition. The image shows George Harris, Eliza, Harry, and Mrs. Smyth after they escape to freedom.]]

One of the subthemes presented in the novel is [[Temperance movement|temperance]].{{sfn|Cordell|2008|p=4}} Stowe made it somewhat subtle and in some cases she wove it into events that would also support the dominant theme. One example of this is when Augustine St. Clare is killed, he attempted to stop a brawl between two inebriated men in a cafe and was stabbed. Another example is the death of Prue, who was whipped to death for being drunk on a consistent basis; however, her reasons for doing so is due to the loss of her baby. In the opening of the novel, the fates of Eliza and her son are being discussed between slave owners over wine. Considering that Stowe intended this to be a subtheme, this scene could foreshadow future events that put alcohol in a bad light.{{sfn|Cordell|2008|pp=8–9}}

Because Stowe saw motherhood as the "ethical and structural model for all of American life"{{sfn|Ammons|1986|p=159}} and also believed that only women had the [[moral authority]] to save{{sfn|Jordan-Lake|2005|p= 61}} the United States from the demon of slavery, another major theme of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' is the moral power and sanctity of women.{{sfn|Wolff|1995|p=615}} Through characters like Eliza, who escapes from slavery to save her young son (and eventually reunites her entire family), or Eva, who is seen as the "ideal Christian",{{sfn|Vrettos|1995|p=101}} Stowe shows how she believed women could save those around them from even the worst injustices. Though later critics have noted that Stowe's female characters are often [[Domestic worker|domestic]] [[cliché]]s instead of realistic women,{{sfn|Lowance|Westbrook|De Prospo|1994|p=132}} Stowe's novel "reaffirmed the importance of women's influence" and helped pave the way for the [[women's rights movement]] in the following decades.{{sfn|Eisenmann|1998|p=3}}

Stowe's [[puritan]]ical religious beliefs show up in the novel's final, overarching theme—the exploration of the nature of Christian love{{sfn|Kurian|2010|p=580}}{{sfn|Sorett|2016|p=125}} and how she feels [[Christian theology]] is [[Christian views on slavery|fundamentally incompatible]] with slavery.{{sfn|Larsen|2000|pp=386–387}} This theme is most evident when Tom urges St. Clare to "look away to Jesus" after the death of St. Clare's beloved daughter Eva. After Tom dies, George Shelby eulogizes Tom by saying, "What a thing it is to be a Christian."{{sfn|Larsen|2000|p=387}} Because Christian themes play such a large role in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''—and because of Stowe's frequent use of direct authorial interjections on religion and faith—the novel often takes the "form of a sermon".{{sfn|Bercovitch|Patell|1994|p=119}}

===Literary theories===

Over the years scholars have postulated a number of theories about what Stowe was trying to say with the novel (aside from the major theme of condemning slavery). For example, as an ardent Christian and active abolitionist, Stowe placed many of her religious beliefs into the novel.{{sfn|Smylie|1995|pp=165–167}} Some scholars have stated that Stowe saw her novel as offering a solution to the moral and political dilemma that troubled many slavery opponents: whether engaging in prohibited behavior was justified in opposing evil. Was the use of violence to oppose the violence of slavery and the breaking of proslavery laws morally defensible?{{sfn|Bellin|1993|p=277}} Which of Stowe's characters should be emulated, the passive Uncle Tom or the defiant George Harris?{{sfn|Bellin|1993|p=275}} Stowe's solution was similar to [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]]'s: God's will would be followed if each person sincerely examined his principles and acted on them.{{sfn|Bellin|1993|p=290}}

Scholars have also seen the novel as expressing the values and ideas of the [[Free Soil|Free Will Movement]].{{sfn|Grant|1998|pp=430–431}} In this view, the character of George Harris embodies the principles of free labor, and the complex character of Ophelia represents those Northerners who condoned compromise with slavery. In contrast to Ophelia is Dinah, who operates on passion. During the course of the novel Ophelia is transformed, just as the [[U.S. Republican Party|Republican Party]] (three years later) proclaimed that the North must transform itself and stand up for its antislavery principles.{{sfn|Grant|1998|pp=433–436}}

[[Feminist theory]] can also be seen at play in Stowe's book, with the novel as a critique of the [[patriarchal]] nature of slavery.{{sfn|Riss|1994|p= 525}} For Stowe, blood relations rather than paternalistic relations between masters and slaves formed the basis of families. Moreover, Stowe viewed national solidarity as an extension of a person's family, thus feelings of nationality stemmed from possessing a shared race. Consequently, she advocated African colonization for freed slaves and not amalgamation into American society.{{sfn|Powell|2021|pp=107–108}}

The book has also been seen as an attempt to redefine [[masculinity]] as a necessary step toward the abolition of slavery.{{sfn|Wolff|1995|pp=599–600}} In this view, abolitionists had begun to resist the vision of aggressive and dominant men that the conquest and colonization of the early 19th century had fostered. To change the notion of manhood so that men could oppose slavery without jeopardizing their self-image or their standing in society, some abolitionists drew on principles of [[women's suffrage]] and Christianity as well as passivism, and praised men for cooperation, compassion, and civic spirit. Others within the abolitionist movement argued for conventional, aggressive masculine action. All the men in Stowe's novel are representations of either one kind of man or the other.{{sfn|Wolff|1995|p=610}}

==Style==
[[File:Eliza-Crossing-the-Ice-Morgan-1881.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.2|Eliza crossing the icy river, in an 1881 theatre poster]]
''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' is written in the sentimental{{sfn|DeLombard|2012}}{{sfn|Noble|2003|p=58}} and melodramatic style common to 19th-century [[sentimental novel]]s{{sfn|Smith|2001|p=221}} and domestic fiction (also called women's fiction). These genres were the most popular novels of Stowe's time and were "written by, for, and about women"{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|pp=124–125}} along with featuring a writing style that evoked a reader's sympathy and emotion.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/domestic.htm |title=Domestic or Sentimental Fiction, 1820–1865 |publisher= [[Washington State University]] |access-date= April 26, 2007}}</ref> ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' has been called a "representative" example of a sentimental novel.{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=125}}

The power in this type of writing can be seen in the reaction of contemporary readers. Georgiana May, a friend of Stowe's, wrote a letter to the author, saying: "I was up last night long after one o'clock, reading and finishing ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''. I could not leave it any more than I could have left a dying child."{{sfn|Badia|Phegley|2005|p=67}} Another reader is described as obsessing on the book at all hours and having considered renaming her daughter Eva.{{sfn|Badia|Phegley|2005|p=66}} Evidently the death of Little Eva affected a lot of people at that time, because in 1852, 300 baby girls in Boston alone were given that name.{{sfn|Badia|Phegley|2005|p=66}}

Despite this positive reaction from readers, for decades [[literary critic]]s dismissed the style found in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and other sentimental novels because these books were written by women and so prominently featured what one critic called "women's sloppy emotions".{{sfn|Rosenthal|2003|p=42}} Another literary critic said that had the novel not been about slavery, "it would be just another sentimental novel",{{sfn|Gossett|1978|pp=123–124}} and another described the book as "primarily a derivative piece of hack work".{{sfn|Nichols|1958|p=328}} In ''The Literary History of the United States'', George F. Whicher called ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' "[[Sunday school|Sunday-school]] fiction", full of "broadly conceived melodrama, humor, and pathos".{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=126}}

In 1985 [[Jane Tompkins]] expressed a different view with her famous defense of the book in "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History."{{sfn|Rosenthal|2003|p=42}}{{sfn|Halpern|2011|p=56}} Tompkins praised the style so many other critics had dismissed, writing that sentimental novels showed how women's emotions had the power to change the world for the better. She also said that the popular domestic novels of the 19th century, including ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', were remarkable for their "intellectual complexity, ambition, and resourcefulness"; and that ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' offers a "critique of American society far more devastating than any delivered by better-known critics such as [[Nathaniel Hawthorne|Hawthorne]] and [[Herman Melville|Melville]]."{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=124}}

==Reactions to the novel==
{{Events leading to the American Civil War}}
''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' has exerted an influence equaled by few other novels in history.{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=124}}<ref name=Hollis>{{cite web |last= Robbins |first= Hollis |author-link=Hollis Robbins |url= http://www.gilderlehrman.org/historynow/06_2008/historian2.php |title=''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and the Matter of Influence |publisher= Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |access-date=December 24, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101110085418/https://www.gilderlehrman.org/historynow/06_2008/historian2.php |archive-date=November 10, 2010}}</ref> Upon publication, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' ignited a firestorm of protest from defenders of slavery (who created a number of books in response to the novel) while the book elicited praise from abolitionists. The novel is considered an influential{{sfn|Kabatchnik|2017|p=269}} "landmark" of protest literature.{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=161}}

===Contemporary reaction in United States and around the world===
[[File:Uncle Tom's Cabin cover.jpg|thumb|upright|Stowe responded to criticism by writing ''[[A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' (1853), documenting the veracity of her novel's depiction of slavery.]]
''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' had an "incalculable"{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=124}} impact on the 19th-century world and captured the imagination of many Americans. In a likely [[wikt:apocryphal|apocryphal]] story that alludes to the novel's impact, when [[Abraham Lincoln]] met Stowe in 1862 he supposedly commented, "So this is the little lady who started this great war."{{sfn|Stowe|1911|p=203}}{{sfn|Vollaro|2009}}{{sfn|Painter|2000|pp= 245–246}} Historians are undecided if Lincoln actually said this line, and in a letter that Stowe wrote to her husband a few hours after meeting with Lincoln no mention of this comment was made.{{sfn|Claybaugh|2003|p=xvii}} Many writers have also credited the novel with focusing Northern anger at the injustices of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law{{sfn|Claybaugh|2003|p=xvii}} and helping to fuel the abolitionist movement.{{sfn|Goldner|2001|p= 82}}{{sfn|DeLombard|2012}} [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] [[General officer|general]] and politician [[James Baird Weaver]] said that the book convinced him to become active in the abolitionist movement.{{sfn|Arnett|1920|pp=154–157}}

[[Frederick Douglass]] was "convinced both of the social uses of the novel and of Stowe's humanitarianism" and heavily promoted the novel in his newspaper during the book's initial release.<ref name="FrederickDouglass">{{cite web |url=https://daily.jstor.org/frederick-douglass-feud-over-uncle-toms-cabin/ |title= Frederick Douglass's Feud Over Uncle Tom's Cabin |first= Grant |last= Shreve |publisher= JSTOR Daily |date= January 29, 2018|access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref> Though Douglass said ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was "a work of marvelous depth and power," he also published criticism of the novel, most prominently by [[Martin Delany]]. In a series of letters in the paper, Delany accused Stowe of "borrowing (and thus profiting) from the work of black writers to compose her novel" and chastised Stowe for her "apparent support of black colonization to Africa."<ref name="FrederickDouglass"/> Delany was "one of the most out-spoken black critics" of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' at the time and later wrote ''[[Blake; or the Huts of America]],'' a novel where an African American "chooses violent rebellion over Tom's resignation."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/africam/blakehp.html |title= Stand still and see the salvation|work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 20, 2022}}</ref>

White people in the [[Southern United States|American South]] were outraged at the novel's release,<ref name=pbs-4p2958>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2958.html |title=Slave narratives and ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' |work=Africans in America |publisher= PBS |access-date= February 16, 2007}}</ref> with the book also roundly criticized by slavery supporters.<ref name="ReactionKey"/> Southern novelist [[William Gilmore Simms]] declared the work utterly false{{sfn|Watson|1976|pp=365–368}} while also calling it slanderous.{{sfn|Brophy|1995–1996|p= 496}} Reactions ranged from a bookseller in [[Mobile, Alabama]], being forced to leave town for selling the novel<ref name=pbs-4p2958/> to threatening letters sent to Stowe (including a package containing a slave's severed ear).<ref name=pbs-4p2958/> Many Southern writers, like Simms, soon wrote their own books in opposition to Stowe's novel.{{sfn|Ridgely|1960}}

Some critics highlighted Stowe's paucity of life-experience relating to Southern life, saying that it led her to create inaccurate descriptions of the region. For instance, she had never been to a Southern plantation. Stowe always said she based the characters of her book on stories she was told by runaway slaves in Cincinnati. It is reported that "She observed firsthand several incidents which galvanized her to write [the] famous anti-slavery novel. Scenes she observed on the Ohio River, including seeing a husband and wife being sold apart, as well as newspaper and magazine accounts and interviews, contributed material to the emerging plot."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg149.htm |title= The Classic Text: Harriett Beecher Stowe |publisher= University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Library |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516041527/http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg149.htm |archive-date=May 16, 2008 |access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref>

In response to these criticisms, in 1853 Stowe published ''[[A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'', an attempt to document the veracity of the novel's depiction of slavery.{{sfn|Ashland|2020}} In the book, Stowe discusses each of the major characters in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and cites "real life equivalents" to them while also mounting a more "aggressive attack on slavery in the South than the novel itself had".{{sfn|Stowe|1854}} Like the novel, ''A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was a best-seller, but although Stowe claimed ''A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin'' documented her previously consulted sources, she actually read many of the cited works only after the publication of her novel.{{sfn|Stowe|1854}}

[[File:Wikibruz24.jpg|thumb|left|A sculpture after an 1869 design by [[Louis Samain]] was installed in 1895 on [[Avenue Louise]] in [[Brussels]]. The scene—a runaway black slave and child attacked by dogs—was inspired by ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''.]]

''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' also created great interest in the United Kingdom. The first London edition appeared in May 1852 and sold 200,000 copies.<ref name=pbs-4p2958/> Some of this interest was due to [[anti-Americanism]] in Britain. As English lawyer [[Nassau William Senior]] argued, "The evil passions which ''Uncle Tom'' gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance, but national jealousy and national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of America—we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen. Our clergy hate her voluntary system—our [[Tories (British political party)|Tories]] hate her democrats—our [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]] hate her [[parvenu]]s—our [[Radicals (UK)|Radicals]] hate her litigiousness, her insolence, and her ambition. All parties hailed Mrs. Stowe as a revolter from the enemy... She taught us how to prove that democrats may be tyrants, that an aristocracy of caste is more oppressive than an aristocracy of station... Our pity for the victim is swallowed up by our hatred of the tyrant."{{sfn|Adams|2008|loc= quoting [[Nassau William Senior|Nassau Senior]] on p. 33}}

Stowe sent a copy of the book to [[Charles Dickens]], who wrote her in response: "I have read your book with the deepest interest and sympathy, and admire, more than I can express to you, both the generous feeling which inspired it, and the admirable power with which it is executed."{{sfn|Stone|1957|p= 188}} The historian and politician [[Thomas Babington Macaulay]] wrote in 1852 that "it is the most valuable addition that America has made to English literature."{{sfn|Rubinstein|2011|p=140}} [[Charles Francis Adams Sr.]], the American ambassador to Britain during the Civil War, argued later that "''Uncle Tom's Cabin''; or ''Life among the Lowly'', published in 1852, exercised, largely from fortuitous circumstances, a more immediate, considerable and dramatic world-influence than any other book ever printed."{{sfn|Adams|2018|p=79}}

[[Leo Tolstoy]] claimed that ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was a greater work than any play written by [[Shakespeare]] because it flowed from the love of God and man.<ref>{{cite book |last=MacFarquhar |first=Larissa |author-link=Larissa MacFarquhar |date=2015 |title=Strangers Drowning : Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |page=278 |isbn=9780143109785}}</ref>

===20th century and modern criticism===

In the 20th century, a number of writers attacked ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' not only for the stereotypes the novel had created about African-Americans but also because of "the utter disdain of the Tom character by the black community".{{sfn|Dinerstein|2009|p=83}} These writers included [[Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright]] with his collection ''[[Uncle Tom's Children]]'' (1938) and [[Chester Himes]] with his 1943 short story "Heaven Has Changed".{{sfn|Dinerstein|2009|p=83}} [[Ralph Ellison]] also critiqued the book with his 1952 novel ''[[Invisible Man]],'' with Ellison figuratively killing Uncle Tom in the opening chapter.{{sfn|Dinerstein|2009|p=83}}

[[File:Uncle Tom and Eva, Staffordshire, England, 1855-1860, glazed and painted ceramic - Concord Museum - Concord, MA - DSC05597.JPG|thumb|''Uncle Tom and Eva'', a [[Staffordshire figure]] produced between 1855 and 1860]]

In 1945 [[James Baldwin]] published his influential and infamous critical essay "Everybody's Protest Novel".{{sfn|Shelby|2012|p=515}} In the essay, Baldwin described ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' as "a bad novel, having, in its self-righteousness, virtuous sentimentality".{{sfn|Baldwin|2017|p=1}} He argued that the novel lacked psychological depth, and that Stowe, "was not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer".{{sfn|Baldwin|2017|p=2}}<ref name="Rothstein">{{cite news|first=Edward |last=Rothstein |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/arts/23conn.html |title= Digging Through the Literary Anthropology of Stowe's Uncle Tom |work=[[The New York Times]] |date= October 23, 2006 |access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref> [[Edward Rothstein]] has claimed that Baldwin missed the point and that the purpose of the novel was "to treat slavery not as a political issue but as an individually human one – and ultimately a challenge to Christianity itself."<ref name="Rothstein"/>

[[George Orwell]] in his essay "[[Good Bad Books]]", first published in ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' in November 1945, claims that "perhaps the supreme example of the 'good bad' book is ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''. It is an unintentionally ludicrous book, full of preposterous melodramatic incidents; it is also deeply moving and essentially true; it is hard to say which quality outweighs the other." But he concludes "I would back ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' to outlive the complete works of [[Virginia Woolf]] or [[George Henry Moore (author)|George Moore]], though I know of no strictly literary test which would show where the superiority lies."{{sfn|Orwell|1968|p=21}}

The negative associations related to ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', in particular how the novel and associated plays [[#Creation_and_popularization_of_stereotypes|created and popularized racial stereotypes]], have to some extent obscured the book's historical impact as a "vital antislavery tool".{{sfn|Appiah|Gates|2005|p=544}} After the turn of the millennium, scholars such as [[Henry Louis Gates Jr.]] and [[Hollis Robbins]] have re-examined ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' in what has been called a "serious attempt to resurrect it as both a central document in American race relations and a significant moral and political exploration of the character of those relations."<ref name="Rothstein"/>

In China, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' experienced a revival of interest in the early 1960s.<ref name=":Gao">{{Cite book |last=Gao |first=Yunxiang |title=Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century |date=2021 |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |isbn=9781469664606 |location=Chapel Hill, NC}}</ref>{{Rp|page=55}} In the Chinese communist view of the book, Uncle Tom was interpreted as having been betrayed by his "Christian consciousness."<ref name=":Gao" />{{Rp|page=55}} In 1961, [[Sun Weishi]] directed a stage play adaptation of the book.<ref name=":Gao" />{{Rp|page=55}} The revival of interest in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' intersected with the translation and popularization of works by [[W. E. B. Du Bois]], who was viewed as having developed a new spirit of Black resistance.<ref name=":Gao" />{{Rp|pages=54–55}}

===Literary significance===
Generally recognized as the first best-selling novel,{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=161}} ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' greatly influenced development of not only [[American literature]] but also protest literature in general.{{sfn|Smith|2008|p=161}}{{sfn|Kabatchnik|2017|p=269}} Later books that owe a large debt to ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' include ''[[The Jungle]]'' by [[Upton Sinclair]] and ''[[Silent Spring]]'' by [[Rachel Carson]].{{sfn|Weinstein|2004|p=13}}

Despite this undisputed significance, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' has been called "a blend of children's [[fable]] and propaganda".<ref name="The Nation">{{cite news|first=Darryl Lorenzo|last=Wellington|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/uncle-toms-shadow/|title='Uncle Tom's Shadow|work=[[The Nation]]|date=December 25, 2006|access-date=October 18, 2020|archive-date=March 31, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190331124115/https://www.thenation.com/article/uncle-toms-shadow/|url-status=dead}}</ref> The novel has also been dismissed by several [[literary critics]] as "merely a sentimental novel";{{sfn|Gossett|1978|pp=123–124}} critic George Whicher stated in his ''Literary History of the United States'' that "Nothing attributable to Mrs. Stowe or her handiwork can account for the novel's enormous vogue; its author's resources as a purveyor of Sunday-school fiction were not remarkable. She had at most a ready command of broadly conceived melodrama, humor, and pathos, and of these popular sentiments she compounded her book."{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|p=126}}

Other critics, though, have praised the novel. [[Edmund Wilson]] stated that "To expose oneself in maturity to ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' may therefore prove a startling experience.  It is a much more impressive work than one has ever been allowed to suspect."{{sfn|Wilson|1977|p=134}} Jane Tompkins stated that the novel is one of the classics of American literature and wonders if many literary critics dismiss the book because it was simply too popular during its day.{{sfn|Tompkins|1985|pp=124–125}}

==Creation and popularization of stereotypes==
[[File:Sam1888Edition.jpg|thumb|An illustration of Sam from the 1888 "New Edition" of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''. The character of Sam helped create the stereotype of the lazy, carefree "happy darky".]]

Many modern scholars and readers have criticized the book for condescending racist descriptions of the black characters' appearances, speech, and behavior, as well as the passive nature of Uncle Tom in accepting his fate.{{sfn|Smith|1988|p= 53}} The novel's creation and use of common [[stereotypes]] about African Americans{{sfn|Hulser|2003}} is significant because ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was the best-selling novel in the world during the 19th century.{{sfn|DiMaggio|2014|p= 15}} As a result, the book (along with illustrations from the book<ref name= Illustrations/> and associated stage productions) played a major role in perpetuating and solidifying such stereotypes into the American psyche.{{sfn|Jamieson|2018|p=331}}{{sfn|Smith|1988|p= 53}}

In the 1960s and 1970s, the [[Black Power]] and [[Black Arts Movement]]s attacked the novel, claiming that the character of Uncle Tom engaged in "race betrayal", and that Tom made slaves out to be worse than slave owners.<ref name="Rothstein"/>

Among the [[African-American stereotypes|stereotypes of blacks]] in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''{{sfn|Jamieson|2018|p=??}}{{sfn|Appiah|Gates|2005|p=544}} are the "happy darky" (in the lazy, carefree character of Sam); the light-skinned [[tragic mulatto]] as a sex object (in the characters of Eliza, Cassy, and Emmeline); the affectionate, dark-skinned female [[mammy archetype|mammy]] (through several characters, including Mammy, a cook at the St. Clare plantation); the [[pickaninny]] stereotype of black children (in the character of Topsy); and the Uncle Tom, an African American who is too eager to please white people.{{sfn|Rosenthal|2003|p=31}}

Stowe intended Tom to be a "noble hero" and a Christ-like figure who, like Jesus at his crucifixion, forgives the people responsible for his death. The false stereotype of Tom as a "subservient fool who bows down to the white man", and the resulting derogatory term "Uncle Tom", resulted from staged "[[Tom Shows]]", which sometimes replaced Tom's grim death with an upbeat ending where Tom causes his oppressors to see the error of their ways, and they all reconcile happily. Stowe had no control over these shows and their alteration of her story.{{sfn|Rosenthal|2003|p=31}}

==Anti-Tom literature==
{{Main|Anti-Tom literature}}
[[File:Auntphillis.jpg|thumb|Title page for ''[[Aunt Phillis's Cabin]]'' by Mary Eastman, one of many examples of anti-Tom literature]]
In response to ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', writers in the Southern United States produced a number of books to rebut Stowe's novel.{{sfn|Glowacki|2015|p=14}} ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was published in 1852, and very quickly seven Anti-Tom novels were published in 1852 and six more in 1853. This so-called [[Anti-Tom literature]] generally took a pro-slavery viewpoint, arguing that the issues of slavery as depicted in Stowe's book were overblown and incorrect.{{sfn|Cordell|2008|p=9}} The novels in this genre tended to feature a benign white patriarchal master and a pure wife, both of whom presided over childlike slaves in a benevolent extended family style plantation. The novels either implied or directly stated that African Americans were a childlike people{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=113}} unable to live their lives without being directly overseen by white people.{{sfn|Jordan-Lake|2005|p= 120}}

Among the most famous anti-Tom books are ''[[The Sword and the Distaff]]'' by [[William Gilmore Simms]], ''[[Aunt Phillis's Cabin]]'' by [[Mary Henderson Eastman]], and ''[[The Planter's Northern Bride]]'' by [[Caroline Lee Hentz]],{{sfn|Beidler|2005|p=29}} with the last author having been a close personal friend of Stowe's when the two lived in Cincinnati. Simms' book was published a few months after Stowe's novel, and it contains a number of sections and discussions disputing Stowe's book and her view of slavery. Hentz's 1854 novel, widely read at the time but now largely forgotten, offers a defense of slavery as seen through the eyes of a Northern woman—the daughter of an abolitionist, no less—who marries a Southern slave owner.{{sfn|Cuenca|1997–1998|p= 90}}

In the decade between the publication of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and the start of the [[American Civil War]], between twenty and thirty anti-Tom books were published (although others continued to be published after the war, including ''[[The Leopard's Spots]]'' in 1902 by "professional racist" [[Thomas Dixon Jr.]]).{{sfn|Benbow|2010|p=510}} More than half of these anti-Tom books were written by white women, Simms commenting at one point about the "Seemingly poetic justice of having the Northern woman (Stowe) answered by a Southern woman."{{sfn|Gates|1987|p=134}}

==Dramatic adaptations==

===Plays and Tom shows===
{{Main|Tom show}}
{{multiple image
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| image1    =Scene from stage production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", 1901)- group of men, two holding whips, pointing at two men and a woman on snow-covered bridge LCCN2004681922.jpg
| alt1      =
| caption1  = Scene in [[William A. Brady]]'s 1901 revival of the play at the [[Academy of Music (New York City)|Academy of Music]], New York City
| image2    =Scene from stage production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", 1901)- Little Eva's death scene LCCN2004681923.jpg
| alt2      =
| caption2  = Little Eva's death scene in Brady's 1901 revival at the Academy of Music
}}
Even though ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, far more Americans of that time saw the story as a stage play or musical than read the book.<ref name="By storm">{{cite web |url= https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/foster/peopleevents/e_cabin.html |title= People & Events: Uncle Tom's Cabin Takes the Nation by Storm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170226113533/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/foster/peopleevents/e_cabin.html |archive-date=February 26, 2017 |work= Stephen Foster – The American Experience |publisher= PBS |access-date= April 19, 2007}}</ref> Historian [[Eric Lott]] estimated that "for every one of the three hundred thousand who bought the novel in its first year, many more eventually saw the play."{{sfn|Lott|2013|p=218}} In 1902, it was reported that a quarter million of these presentations had already been performed in the United States.{{sfn|Frick|2016|p=xiv}}

Given the lax copyright laws of the time, stage plays based on ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''—"Tom shows"—began to appear while the novel was still being serialized. Stowe refused to authorize dramatization of her work because of her distrust of drama, although she eventually saw [[George Aiken (playwright)|George L. Aiken]]'s version and, according to Francis Underwood, was "delighted" by Caroline Howard's portrayal of Topsy.{{sfn|Lott|2013|p=228}}  Aiken's stage production was the most popular play in the U.S. and Britain for 75 years.<ref name= Hollis/> Stowe's refusal to authorize a particular dramatic version left the field clear for any number of adaptations, some launched for (various) political reasons and others as simply commercial theatrical ventures.{{sfn|Griffiths|2016|p=76}}{{sfn|Buinicki|2006|p=77}}

No [[international copyright]] laws existed at the time. The book and plays were translated into several languages. Stowe received no money, which could have meant as much as "three-fourths of her just and legitimate wages".{{sfn|Reese|2007|p=143}}

All the Tom shows appear to have incorporated elements of [[melodrama]] and [[blackface]] [[minstrel show|minstrelsy]].{{sfn|Appiah|Gates|2005|p=544}} These plays varied tremendously in their politics—some faithfully reflected Stowe's sentimentalized antislavery politics, while others were more moderate, or even pro-slavery.{{sfn|Lott|2013|p=219}} Many of the productions featured demeaning racial caricatures of black people;{{sfn|Appiah|Gates|2005|p=544}} some productions also featured songs by [[Stephen Foster]], including "[[My Old Kentucky Home]]", "[[Old Folks at Home]]", and "Massa's in the Cold Ground".<ref name="By storm"/> The best-known Tom shows were those of George Aiken and H. J. Conway.{{sfn|Lott|2013|p=220}}

The many stage variants of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' "dominated northern popular culture... for several years" during the 19th century,{{sfn|Lott|2013|p=222}} and the plays were still being performed in the early 20th century.<ref>{{cite magazine |first= Holly L. |last= Derr |url= https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/09/the-pervading-influence-of-em-uncle-toms-cabin-em-in-pop-culture/279281/ |title= The Pervading Influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Pop Culture |magazine= The Atlantic |date= September 4, 2013 |access-date= March 10, 2022}}</ref>

===Films===
{{Main|Film adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin}}

[[File:1903UncleTomFilm.jpg|thumb|A still from [[Edwin S. Porter]]'s 1903 version of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', which was one of the first full-length movies. The still shows Eliza telling Uncle Tom that he has been sold and that she is running away to save her child.]]
''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' has been adapted several times as a film. Most of these movies were created during the [[silent film]] era (''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was the most-filmed book of that time period).<ref name="UTCFilm">{{cite web |url=http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/fihp.html |title= Uncle Tom's Cabin on Film |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080510153638/http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/fihp.html |archive-date=May 10, 2008 |work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 21, 2022}}</ref> Because of the continuing popularity of both the book and "Tom" shows, audiences were already familiar with the characters and the plot, making it easier for the film to be understood without spoken words.<ref name="UTCFilm"/>

The first film version of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was one of the earliest full-length movies, although full-length at that time meant between 10 and 14 minutes.<ref name="Porter">{{cite web |url=http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/mv03hp.html |title= The First Uncle Tom's Cabin Film: Edison-Porter's 'Slavery Days' (1903) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070313225042/http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/mv03hp.html |archive-date=March 13, 2007 |work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 21, 2022}}</ref> This 1903 film, directed by [[Edwin S. Porter]], used white actors in [[blackface]] in the major roles and black performers only as [[Extra (actor)|extras]]. This version was evidently similar to many of the "Tom Shows" of earlier decades and featured several stereotypes about blacks, such as having the slaves dance in almost any context, including at a slave auction.<ref name="Porter"/>

In 1910, a three-reel [[Vitagraph Studios|Vitagraph Company of America]] production was directed by [[J. Stuart Blackton]] and adapted by Eugene Mullin. According to ''The Dramatic Mirror'', this film was "a decided innovation" in motion pictures and "the first time an American company" released a dramatic film in three reels. Until then, full-length movies of the time were 15 minutes long and contained only one reel of film. The movie starred [[Florence Turner]], [[Mary Fuller]], Edwin R. Phillips, [[Flora Finch]], [[Genevieve Tobin]] and [[Carlyle Blackwell]], Sr.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/mv10hp1.html |title=The 3-Reel Vitagraph Production (1910)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013221156/http://iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/mv10hp1.html |archive-date=October 13, 2007 |work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 21, 2022}}</ref>

At least four more movie adaptations were created in the next two decades. The last silent film version was released in 1927. Directed by [[Harry A. Pollard]], who played Uncle Tom in a 1913 release of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', this two-hour movie was more than a year in production and was the third most expensive picture of the silent era, at a cost of $1.8&nbsp;million. The black actor [[Charles Sidney Gilpin|Charles Gilpin]] was originally cast in the title role, but he was fired after the studio decided his "portrayal was too aggressive".<ref name="SuperJewel">{{cite web |url=http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/mv27hp.html |title=Universal Super Jewel Production (1927) |work=Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher=Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date=February 21, 2022 |archive-date=April 11, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090411193822/http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/mv27hp.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

For several decades after the end of the silent film era, the subject matter of Stowe's novel was judged too sensitive for further film interpretation. In 1946, [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] considered filming the story but ceased production after protests led by the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]].<ref name="Hollywood">{{cite web |url=http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/cameos/hollywood.html |title=Uncle Tom's Cabin in Hollywood: 1929–1956 |work=Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher=Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date=February 21, 2022 |archive-date=April 11, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090411193731/http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/cameos/hollywood.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The story was adapted as a play within the musical film version of [[The King and I (1956 film) | The King & I]]. Within the main story, the character of [[Anna Leonowens]] gives Tuptim a copy of the book of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Tuptim relates to the anti-slavery themes of the book, and adapts it in to a traditional Siamese play for a state dinner. In this version, called "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", the characters are re-written as Buddhists. This version eliminates most of the white slave owners as characters, and focuses only on Tom, Simon, Eliza, Eva, and Topsy. Film versions were created overseas in the following decades, including a 1965 German-language version and a TV soap opera in [[Brazil]] called ''[[A Cabana do Pai Tomás]],'' which ran for 205 episodes from July 1969 to March 1970.{{sfn|Jackson|2017|p=106}} The final film version{{sfn|Frick|2016|p=xviii}} was a [[Uncle Tom's Cabin (1987 film)|television broadcast in 1987]], directed by [[Stan Lathan]] and adapted by John Gay. It starred [[Avery Brooks]], [[Phylicia Rashad]], [[Edward Woodward]], [[Jenny Lewis]], [[Samuel L. Jackson]] and Endyia Kinney.{{sfn|Hamilton|2002|p= 25}}

In addition to film adaptations, versions of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' have been produced in other formats, including a number of [[animated cartoon]]s. ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' also influenced movies, including ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]''. This controversial 1915 film set the dramatic climax in a slave cabin similar to that of Uncle Tom, where several white Southerners unite with their former enemy (Yankee soldiers) to defend, according to the film's caption, their "[[Aryan race|Aryan]] birthright". According to scholars, this reuse of such a familiar image of a slave cabin would have resonated with, and been understood by, audiences of the time.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=115}}<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/cameos/griffithhp.html |title= H. B. Stowe's Cabin in D. W. Griffith's Movie |work= Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, a Multi-Media Archive |publisher= Department of English, University of Virginia |access-date= February 21, 2022 |archive-date= April 11, 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090411193726/http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/cameos/griffithhp.html |url-status= dead }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[History of slavery in the United States]]
* [[Origins of the American Civil War]]
* ''[[Ramona]]'', an 1884 novel that attempted to do for Native Americans in California what ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' had done for African Americans
* [[Timeline of the civil rights movement]]

==References==
===Notes===
{{reflist|30em}}

===Bibliography===
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{{refend}}

; Journals
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite journal |first=A. M. |last= Arnett |title= Review of James Baird Weaver by Fred Emory Haynes |journal= Political Science Quarterly |volume= 35 |issue= 1 |date= March 1920 |pages= 154–157 |doi= 10.2307/2141508 |jstor= 2141508 }} Profile of [https://web.archive.org/web/20070102214125/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAweaverJ.htm James Baird Weaver] from archive. org, 2007. Retrieved February 17, 2007.
* {{cite journal |last=Ashland |first= Alexander J. |title=Documenting Novel Sources in Antebellum U.S. Literature  |journal= South Atlantic Review |volume= 85 |issue= 3 |date= Fall 2020 |url= https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA635785935&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=0277335X&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E17031d34}}
* {{cite journal |first=Joshua D |last= Bellin |title= Up to Heaven's Gate, Down in Earth's Dust: the Politics of Judgment in Uncle Tom's Cabin |journal= American Literature |volume= 65 |issue= 2 |date=1993 |pages= 275–295 |doi= 10.2307/2927342 |jstor=2927342}}
* {{cite journal|last1=Beidler|first1=Philip D.|title=Caroline Lee Hentz's Long Journey|journal=Alabama Heritage|date=Winter 2005|issue=75 |pages=24–31 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/ebb04cac6d9b452b26f8e2df069bf991/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=46572}}
* {{cite journal
|first=Mark E.|last=Benbow|title=Birth of a Quotation: Woodrow Wilson and 'Like Writing History with Lightning'
|journal=[[Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era]]|volume=9|number=4|date=October 2010|page=510|quote=Dixon might be best described as a professional racist who made his living writing books and plays attacking the presence of African Americans in the United States. A firm believer not only in white supremacy, but also in the 'degeneration' of blacks after slavery ended, Dixon thought the ideal solution to America's racial problems was to deport all blacks to Africa. |jstor=20799409|doi=10.1017/S1537781400004242|s2cid=162913069}}
* {{cite journal |first=Carolyn Vellenga |last= Berman |title= Creole Family Politics in Uncle Tom's Cabin and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl |journal= Novel: A Forum on Fiction |volume=33 |issue= 3| date=Summer 2000 |pages= 328–353 |doi= 10.2307/1346168|jstor= 1346168 }}
* {{cite journal |first=Alfred L. |last= Brophy |url= http://blurblawg.typepad.com/files/stowe.pdf |title= Over and above ... There Broods a Portentous Shadow – The Shadow of Law: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Critique of Slave Law in Uncle Tom's Cabin |journal= Journal of Law and Religion |volume=12 |issue= 2| date=1995–1996 |pages= 457–506 |doi= 10.2307/1051590|jstor= 1051590 |s2cid= 159994075 }}
* {{cite journal |first= Ryan C. |last=Cordell |title='Enslaving you, body and soul': the uses of temperance in Uncle Tom's Cabin and 'anti-Tom' fiction |journal=Studies in American Fiction |date=Spring 2008 |volume= 36 |issue= 1 |pages= 3–26 |doi= 10.1353/saf.2008.0005 |s2cid= 153482599 |url=https://mla.hcommons.org/deposits/objects/mla:572/datastreams/CONTENT/content|url-access= subscription }}
* {{cite journal |first= Carme Manuel |last= Cuenca |title= An angel in the plantation: The economics of slavery and the politics of literary domesticity in Caroline Lee Hentz's 'The Planter's Northern Bride' |journal= The Mississippi Quarterly |volume= 51 |issue= 1 |date= Winter 1997–1998 |pages= 87–104 |jstor= 26476914}}
* {{cite journal |first= Jeannine |last= DeLombard |title= Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America |journal= The Historian |volume= 74 |issue= 3 |date=Fall 2012 |url= https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA303450562&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00182370&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ed45b82f0}}
* {{cite journal |first=Kenneth |last= DiMaggio |title= Uncle Tom's Cabin: Global Best Seller, Anti-slave Narrative, Imperialist Agenda |journal= Global Studies Journal |volume= 7 |issue= 1 |date=2014 |pages= 15–23 |doi= 10.18848/1835-4432/CGP/46892 }}
* {{cite journal |first=Joel |last= Dinerstein |title= 'Uncle Tom Is Dead!': Wright, Himes, and Ellison Lay a Mask to Rest |journal= African American Review |volume= 43 |issue= 1 |date=Spring 2009 |pages= 83–98 |doi= 10.1353/afa.0.0021 |jstor=27802564|s2cid= 161792306 }}
* {{cite journal |first=John |last= Gatta |title= Harriet's Houses |journal= The Sewanee Review |volume= 123 |issue= 3 |date=Summer 2015 |pages= 493–502 |doi= 10.1353/sew.2015.0080 |jstor=43663097 |s2cid= 161424691 }}
* {{cite journal |last= Glowacki |first= Peggy|title= Visualizing Uncle Tom's Cabin: Images and Interpretation |journal=Illinois Library Association Reporter |date= April 2015 |volume= 33 |issue= 2 |url= https://www.ila.org/content/documents/reporter-2015-04.pdf}}
* {{cite journal |last= Goldner |first= Ellen J. |title= Arguing with Pictures: Race, Class and the Formation of Popular Abolitionism Through Uncle Tom's Cabin |journal= Journal of American & Comparative Cultures |volume= 24 |issue= 1–2 |date=Spring 2001 |pages= 71–84|doi= 10.1111/j.1537-4726.2001.2401_71.x }}
* {{cite journal |first=Thomas F. |last= Gossett |title= Review of ''The Building of Uncle Tom's Cabin'' by E. Bruce Kirkham |journal=American Literature |volume= 50 |issue= 1 |date=March 1978 |pages= 123–124|doi= 10.2307/2925530 |jstor= 2925530 }}
* {{cite journal |first= David |last=Grant |title= Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Triumph of Republican Rhetoric |journal= New England Quarterly |year= 1998 |volume=71 |issue= 3 |pages= 429–448 |doi= 10.2307/366852 |jstor= 366852}}
* {{cite journal |first= Faye |last= Halpern |title= Unmasking Criticism: The Problem with Being a Good Reader of Sentimental Rhetoric |journal= Narrative |date= 2011 |volume= 19 |issue= 1 |pages= 51–71 |doi= 10.1353/nar.2011.0005 |jstor=41289286|s2cid= 145794072 }}
* {{cite journal |first= Kendra |last= Hamilton |title= The Strange Career of Uncle Tom |journal= Black Issues in Higher Education |date= June 6, 2002 |volume= 19 |issue=8 |pages=22–27 |url= https://www.proquest.com/openview/4f4452e2471737042f5599b2c08db4b2/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=27805}}
* {{cite journal |first= Marianne |last=Holohan |title=British Illustrated Editions of Uncle Tom's Cabin: Race, Working-Class Literacy, and Transatlantic Reprinting in the 1850s |journal= Resources for American Literary Study |date= January 2011 |volume= 36 |issue= 1 |pages=27–65|doi=10.5325/resoamerlitestud.36.2011.0027|s2cid=246646334 |doi-access=free }}
* {{cite journal |last=Hulser |first= Kathleen |title=Reading Uncle Tom's Image: From Anti-slavery Hero to Racial Insult |journal= New-York Journal of American History |date=2003 |volume= 65 |issue=1 |pages= 75–79 |issn=1551-5486}}
* {{cite journal |first= Theodore R. |last= Hovet |title= Mrs. Thomas C. Upham's 'Happy Phebe': A Feminine Source of Uncle Tom |journal= [[American Literature (journal)|American Literature]] |date= 1979 |volume= 51 |issue= 2 |pages= 267–270 |doi= 10.2307/2925588 |jstor=2925588}}
* {{cite journal |last= Jamieson|first= Erin|title= Systemic Racism as a Living Text: Implications of Uncle Tom's Cabin as a Fictionalized Narrative of Present and Past Black Bodies  |journal= Journal of African American Studies |date= December 2018 |volume= 22 |issue= 4 |pages= 329–344 |doi= 10.1007/s12111-018-9414-8|s2cid= 150014032|url= https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12111-018-9414-8 |url-access= subscription }}
* {{cite journal |first=Tao |last=Jie |url= https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/prospects/article/abs/uncle-toms-cabin-the-first-american-novel-translated-into-chinese/F066B391C8F934E649BB357C8AA55D8C |title=Uncle Tom's Cabin: The First American Novel Translated into Chinese |journal= Prospects |volume= 18 |date=October 1993 |pages= 517–534 |doi=10.1017/S0361233300005007|url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal |first= Douglas A. |last= Jones |title= Adena Spingarn: Uncle Tom: From Martyr to Traitor |journal= American Historical Review |date= October 2019 |volume= 124 |issue= 4 |pages= 1465–1467 |doi=10.1093/ahr/rhz962}}
* {{cite journal |first=Charles |last=Nichols |jstor=273254 |title=The Origins of Uncle Tom's Cabin |journal=The Phylon Quarterly |volume= 19 |issue= 3 |date= 1958 |pages=328–334 |doi=10.2307/273254 }}
* {{cite journal |first= Kristen |last=Oertel |title=Sharp Flashes of Lightning Come from Black Clouds: The Life of Josiah Henson |journal= Journal of Southern History |date= May 2020 |volume= 86 |issue= 2 |pages=465–466 |doi= 10.1353/soh.2020.0107|s2cid=219491541 }}
* {{cite journal |first= Nell Irvin |last= Painter |title=Honest Abe and Uncle Tom |journal= Canadian Review of American Studies |year= 2000 |volume= 30 |issue= 3 |pages= 245–272 |doi= 10.3138/CRAS-s030-03-01|s2cid= 155725588 }}
* {{cite journal |last= Reese |first= R. Anthony |title= Innocent Infringement in U.S. Copyright Law: A History |journal= Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts |date=Winter 2007 |volume= 30 |issue=2 |pages= 133–184 |url= https://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/reese/reese_innocent_infringement.pdf}}
* {{cite journal |first=Joseph V. |last=Ridgely |title=Woodcraft: Simms's First Answer to Uncle Tom's Cabin |journal= American Literature |volume= 31 |issue= 4 |date=January 1960 |pages= 421–433 |doi=10.2307/2922435 |jstor=2922435}}
* {{cite journal |last= Riss |first= Arthur |title= Racial Essentialism and Family Values in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' |journal= American Quarterly |year= 1994 |volume= 46 |issue= 4 |pages= 513–544 |doi= 10.2307/2713382 |jstor=2713382}}
* {{cite journal |first=Tommie |last= Shelby |title= The Ethics of Uncle Tom's Children |journal= Critical Inquiry |volume= 38 |issue= 3 |date=Spring 2012 |pages=513–532|doi= 10.1086/664549 |s2cid= 153830399 |url= https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/11899739/54641594.pdf?sequence=1 }}
* {{cite journal |author-link=James H. Smylie |last=Smylie |first= James H. |title=''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' Revisited: the Bible, the Romantic Imagination, and the Sympathies of Christ |journal=American Presbyterians |date= 1995 |volume=73 |issue=3 |pages= 165–175 |doi=10.1177/002096437302700105|s2cid=170344119 }}
* {{Cite journal |last = Stone|first = Harry |jstor = 3044086|title = Charles Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe|journal = Nineteenth-Century Fiction|year = 1957|volume = 12|issue = 3|pages = 188–202|doi = 10.2307/3044086}}
* {{cite journal |first=Anthony E. |last= Szczesiul |title= The Canonization of Tom and Eva: Catholic Hagiography and Uncle Tom's Cabin |journal= American Transcendental Quarterly |volume= 10 |issue= 1 |date=March 1996 |pages=59–73}}
* {{cite journal|last=Vollaro |first= Daniel R. |title=Lincoln, Stowe, and the 'Little Woman/Great War' Story: The Making, and Breaking, of a Great American Anecdote|url= http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/30.1/vollaro.html |journal= Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association |date=Winter 2009 |pages= 18–34|volume=30|number=1|doi= 10.5406/19457987.30.1.04 |hdl= 2027/spo.2629860.0030.104 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015043157/http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/30.1/vollaro.html|archive-date=October 15, 2009|hdl-access=free}}
* {{cite journal |first= Charles S. |last= Watson |title=Simms's Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin |journal= American Literature |volume= 48 |issue= 3  |date=November 1976 |pages= 365–368 |doi=10.2307/2924870 |jstor=2924870}}
* {{cite journal| last = Winship| first = Michael| title = The Greatest Book of Its Kind: A Publishing History of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'| journal = Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society| volume = 109| issue = 2| pages = 309–332| date = October 1999| url = https://americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44525181.pdf}}
* {{cite journal| last = Winship| first = Michael| title = The Library of Congress in 1892: Ainsworth Spofford, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, and Uncle Tom's Cabin| journal = Libraries & the Cultural Record| volume = 45| issue = 1| pages = 85–91| date = 2010| doi = 10.1353/lac.0.0114| jstor = 20720641| s2cid = 153517304}}
* {{cite journal| last = Wolff| first = Cynthia Griffin| title = Masculinity in Uncle Tom's Cabin| journal = American Quarterly| volume = 47| issue = 4| pages = 595–618| date = 1995|doi= 10.2307/2713368| jstor = 2713368}}
* {{cite journal| last = Wright| first = Robert E.| title = Liberty Befits All: Stowe and Uncle Tom's Cabin| journal = Independent Review | volume = 25| issue = 3| pages = 385–396| date = Winter 2021}}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite book |last=Aiken |first= George L. |title= Uncle Tom's Cabin |publisher= Garland |date= 1993}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Gerould |editor-first= Daniel C. |title= American Melodrama |publisher= Performing Arts Journal Publications |date=1983}}
* {{cite book |last= Parfait |first= Claire |title= The Publishing History of Uncle's Tom's Cabin, 1852–2002 |publisher=Ashgate|location= Aldershot, Hampshire, United Kingdom |date= 2007}}
* {{cite book |last= Reynolds |first= David S. |author-link= David S. Reynolds |title= Mightier Than the Sword: ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and the Battle for America |publisher= W. W. Norton & Company |date= 2011}}
* {{cite book |last1= Stowe |first1= Harriet Beecher |last2= Gates |first2= Henry Louis |first3= Hollis |last3= Robbins |title= The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin |year= 2007 |publisher= W. W. Norton & Company}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Uncle Tom's Cabin|''Uncle Tom's Cabin''}}
{{wikisource|Uncle Tom's Cabin|''Uncle Tom's Cabin''}}
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?300230-1/mightier-sword Presentation by Reynolds on ''Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America'' at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, May 19, 2011], [[C-SPAN]]}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/harriet-beecher-stowe/uncle-toms-cabin}}
* [http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/ University of Virginia Web site "''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' and American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive"] – edited by Stephen Railton, covers 1830 to 1930, offering links to primary and bibliographic sources on the cultural background, various editions, and public reception of Harriet Beecher Stowe's influential novel. The site also provides the full text of the book, audio and video clips, and examples of related merchandising.
* {{gutenberg|no=203|name=Uncle Tom's Cabin}}
* [https://archive.org/search.php?query=Uncle%20Tom%27s%20Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''], available at [[Internet Archive]]. Scanned, illustrated original editions.
* {{librivox book | title=Uncle Tom's Cabin | author=Harriet Beecher Stowe}}

{{Uncle Tom's Cabin| state=expanded}}
{{Harriet Beecher Stowe}}
{{Underground Railroad}}
{{American Civil War| state=collapsed}}
{{Slave narrative}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Uncle Tom's Cabin| ]]
[[Category:1852 American novels]]
[[Category:Cultural history of the American Civil War]]
[[Category:Novels by Harriet Beecher Stowe]]
[[Category:Novels about American slavery]]
[[Category:Novels first published in serial form]]
[[Category:Sentimental novels]]
[[Category:Southern United States in fiction]]
[[Category:Works originally published in American magazines]]
[[Category:Works originally published in political magazines]]
[[Category:Race-related controversies in literature]]
[[Category:Novels adapted into comics]]
[[Category:American novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:American novels adapted into plays]]
[[Category:Red River of the South]]
[[Category:American novels adapted into television shows]]
[[Category:Censored books]]
[[Category:Slave cabins and quarters in the United States]]
[[Category:Books about human rights]]
[[Category:Origins of the American Civil War]]
[[Category:American Christian novels]]
[[Category:Social novels]]