The Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin Natia Searles
Book was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a northern white American abolitionist and teacher Was an influential book on slavery published 1852 Book tells about a black male slave’s life while putting you in the reality of slavery. Stowe was inspired to create Uncle Tom's Cabin by the autobiography of Josiah Henson, a black slave who lived and worked on a 3,700 acre tobacco plantation.
First published in a periodical then turned into a book It was the second most popular book of the year it was published. Only the Bible sold more copies.
Tensions between North and South This book pushed more people to become abolitionists – to care about slavery. “Into the emotion-charged atmosphere of mid- nineteenth-century America Uncle Tom’s Cabin exploded like a bombshell…the social impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the United States was greater than that of any book before or since.” —Printing and the Mind of Man, Edited by John Carter & Peter H. Muir
Sources: Aspects of the Publishing History of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, highlights/stowe/essay2.html History Today June 1, 2001 Cavendish, Richard History Today Ltd (secondary source)