Harriet Beecher Stowe

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, CT. At the age of five Harriet’s mother passed away. During the time when girls needed little education and were expected to stay at home Harriet attended Hartford Female Seminary. Harriet’s sister Catharine was the school’s founder. During the time Harriet attended her writing skills developed. After attending the school Harriet became a teacher there. In 1832 Harriet and her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where she later met and married Calvin Stowe. September 29, 1836 Harriet and her husband started their family by giving birth to twin girls. The twins were the first two of her seven children. Harriet really enjoyed writing so as a way to help support her family she would write for children’s stories and magazine articles. In 1850 Harriet and Calvin made a move to Brunswick, Maine so Calvin could take an academic position at Bowdoin College.

Of all Harriet’s publications may would say the most famous is Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in two volumes. It translated into over sixty languages and was a best seller in the United States, England, Europe, and Asia; selling 300,000 copies in the first year. Harriet showed her readers the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that the enslaved people had to endure. After reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin many people from the north wanted to abolish slavery. In the south the effects were not so good. The book was actually banned from many southern states because they said it was not a true account and criticized her for going by what she had heard rather than actually go to the south. As a way to defend the south many southerners started writing books praising slavery.

In 1853 Harriet’s husband took a job at Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts. They lived