Fact Finder - Arts and Literature

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin' (1852) was a cultural earthquake in America. It was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and is often credited with helping to spark the American Civil War. The book humanized the horrors of slavery for millions of Northerners who had previously been indifferent. Legend has it that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe at the White House in 1862, he said, 'So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!' While the exact quote may be a later embellishment, it accurately reflects the immense political and social power the book held. Stowe used her writing as a moral weapon, proving that literature could be a primary catalyst for radical social change and the abolitionist movement.