STOWE, HARRIET ELIZABETH BEECHER
(14 June 1811, Litchfield, CT-l July 1896, Hartford, CT. Education: Attended a dames' school in Litchfield, then a girl's school in Hartford. Career. Teacher, Western Female Institute; housewife; writer.
Abraham Lincoln called her the little lady who wrote the book that began the Great War. Harriet Beecher Stowe is best known as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of the most popular and controversial books ever written by an American. And as Lincoln suggested, the book is arguably one of the reasons for the war. At least many Americans who had been indifferent to slavery came to regard slavery as morally wrong after reading about Uncle Tom and little Eva.
The power of Uncle Tom's Cabin lies in the moral fervor Stowe brought to her work. That fervor was nourished by her clergyman father, Lyman Beecher*, five of whose sons became ministers. Stowe listened to many family conversations on the doctrines of Calvinism, and was so interested in theology herself that at the age of eleven she wrote a well-received paper on the question, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be Proved by the Light of Nature?" She lived through the morbid introspection and doubt then expected of a true believer. And when she was fourteen, she had a conversion experience.
The family moved from Connecticut to Ohio in 1832, and Lyman Beecher became president of Lane Theological Seminary, a hotbed of revivalism. Harriet taught school for a while and then married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor of biblical literature at Lane. During the 1850s the Stowes moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Calvin taught at Bowdoin and Harriet began her writing career. At the time her brother Edward Beecher, a Boston minister, was preaching against the Fugitive Slave Law.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was forty-one when Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. During the next four decades she wrote an average of a book a year. Many had spiritual themes, including Religious Poems (1867), which includes the famous hymn, "Still, Still with Thee, When Purple Morning Breaketh." Others, including Oldtown Folks (1869) are valuable descriptions-fiction based largely on fact-of the Puritan world into which she was born. In Poganuc People (1878) she described how the venerable Cotton Mather had reached across the centuries and touched her. In the story, "Dolly" is thrilled when she picks up Mather's Magnalia and begins reading: "What wonderful stories these! and stories, too, about her own country, stories that made her feel that the very ground she trod on was consecrated by some special dealing of God's providence."
Harriet Beecher Stowe carried that Puritan conviction that America was "consecrated" in righteousness into her devastating attack on the nation's great moral blight-slavery.
Bibliography
A: Uncle Tom's Cabin (Rahway, N.J., 1852; and many subsequent editions); Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (Boston, 1856); The Minister's Wooing (New York, 1859); Religious Poems (Boston, 1867); Oldtown Folks (Boston, 1869); Poganuc People (Boston, 1878); The Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Boston, 1896).
B: DAB 18, 114-20; NAW 39,3-402; Charles Edward Stowe, Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Compiled from Her Journals and Letters (Boston, 1889); A. A. Fields, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Boston, 1897); C. E. and L. B. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Story of Her Life (Boston, 1911); L. B. Stowe, Saints, Sinners, and Beechers (Indianapolis, 1934); Forrest Wilson, Crusader in Crinoline (Philadelphia. 1941); Charles Foster, The Rungless Ladder: Harriet Beecher Stowe and New England Purritanism (Durham, N.C., 1954).
Abraham Lincoln called her the little lady who wrote the book that began the Great War. Harriet Beecher Stowe is best known as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of the most popular and controversial books ever written by an American. And as Lincoln suggested, the book is arguably one of the reasons for the war. At least many Americans who had been indifferent to slavery came to regard slavery as morally wrong after reading about Uncle Tom and little Eva.
The power of Uncle Tom's Cabin lies in the moral fervor Stowe brought to her work. That fervor was nourished by her clergyman father, Lyman Beecher*, five of whose sons became ministers. Stowe listened to many family conversations on the doctrines of Calvinism, and was so interested in theology herself that at the age of eleven she wrote a well-received paper on the question, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be Proved by the Light of Nature?" She lived through the morbid introspection and doubt then expected of a true believer. And when she was fourteen, she had a conversion experience.
The family moved from Connecticut to Ohio in 1832, and Lyman Beecher became president of Lane Theological Seminary, a hotbed of revivalism. Harriet taught school for a while and then married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor of biblical literature at Lane. During the 1850s the Stowes moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Calvin taught at Bowdoin and Harriet began her writing career. At the time her brother Edward Beecher, a Boston minister, was preaching against the Fugitive Slave Law.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was forty-one when Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. During the next four decades she wrote an average of a book a year. Many had spiritual themes, including Religious Poems (1867), which includes the famous hymn, "Still, Still with Thee, When Purple Morning Breaketh." Others, including Oldtown Folks (1869) are valuable descriptions-fiction based largely on fact-of the Puritan world into which she was born. In Poganuc People (1878) she described how the venerable Cotton Mather had reached across the centuries and touched her. In the story, "Dolly" is thrilled when she picks up Mather's Magnalia and begins reading: "What wonderful stories these! and stories, too, about her own country, stories that made her feel that the very ground she trod on was consecrated by some special dealing of God's providence."
Harriet Beecher Stowe carried that Puritan conviction that America was "consecrated" in righteousness into her devastating attack on the nation's great moral blight-slavery.
Bibliography
A: Uncle Tom's Cabin (Rahway, N.J., 1852; and many subsequent editions); Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (Boston, 1856); The Minister's Wooing (New York, 1859); Religious Poems (Boston, 1867); Oldtown Folks (Boston, 1869); Poganuc People (Boston, 1878); The Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Boston, 1896).
B: DAB 18, 114-20; NAW 39,3-402; Charles Edward Stowe, Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Compiled from Her Journals and Letters (Boston, 1889); A. A. Fields, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Boston, 1897); C. E. and L. B. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Story of Her Life (Boston, 1911); L. B. Stowe, Saints, Sinners, and Beechers (Indianapolis, 1934); Forrest Wilson, Crusader in Crinoline (Philadelphia. 1941); Charles Foster, The Rungless Ladder: Harriet Beecher Stowe and New England Purritanism (Durham, N.C., 1954).