Harriet Beecher Stowe Article Index for
Harriet
Website Links For
Harriet Beecher
 

Information About

Harriet Beecher Stowe




Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, born '''Harriet Elizabeth Beecher''' ( June 14 , 1811July 1 , 1896 ) was an Abolitionist and Writer of more than 10 books, the most famous being '' Uncle Tom's Cabin '' which describes life in Slavery , and which was first published in serial form from 1851 to 1852 in an abolitionist organ, the ''National Era'', edited by Gamaliel Bailey .

Her second novel was '''': another anti-slavery novel.

Born in Litchfield , Connecticut and raised primarily in Hartford , she was the daughter of Lyman Beecher , an abolitionist Congregationalist preacher from Boston and Roxana Foote Beecher, and the sister of renowned minister, Henry Ward Beecher . In 1832 , her family moved to Cincinnati , another hotbed of the abolitionist movement, where her father became the first president of Lane Theological Seminary . There she gained first-hand knowledge of slavery and the Underground Railroad and was moved to write ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', the first major American novel with an African-American hero.

In 1836 Harriet Beecher married Calvin Stowe, a clergyman and widower. Later she and her husband moved to Brunswick, Maine , when he obtained an academic position at Bowdoin College . Harriet and Calvin had seven children, but some died in early childhood. Her first children, twin girls Hattie and Eliza, were born on September 29, 1836. Four years later, in 1840, her son Frederick William was born. In 1848 the birth of Samuel Charles occurred, but in the following year, he died from a cholera epidemic. She is buried on the grounds of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts .


QUOTATIONS

  • When Stowe met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 (during the Civil War ), he reportedly greeted her, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"


  • "The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."



PARTIAL LIST OF WORKS



SEE ALSO



EXTERNAL LINKS



REFERENCES