14 June: Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, best known for the novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was born on this date in 1811. 10 things you might not know about her.

1. She was born in Litchfield, Connecticut. Her father was a preacher and her seven brothers followed in his footsteps. Her father was vehemently against slavery, and her brother, Henry, is said to have sent rifles to Abolitionist movements in crates marked “Bibles”.
2. Her famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was first published in instalments in an abolitionist newspaper called The National Era.
3. She started writing as a child and once won a literary competition at school. After moving to Cincinnati with her father, she joined a literary group called the Semi Colon club. She published a collection of sketches, or short stories written to illustrate a political point. It was one of her stories which brought her to the attention of The National Era who asked her if she would write for them.
4. She wrote more than 20 books in all, both fiction and non fiction, including a book about geography for children. She also wrote poems and hymns.
5. She married Calvin Ellis Stowe, who was a professor at the seminary where her father worked. They had seven children but only three of them outlived her. One child died from cholera as an infant. One son drowned, another vanished on his way to California and one of her daughters was a drug addict and died from septicaemia.
6. It was Uncle Tom’s Cabin which made her rich, however, and she and her husband used to some of the money to buy a winter retreat in Florida. Which may not seem strange until you remember Florida was a pro-slavery state. Nevertheless, her neighbours weren’t hostile. She wrote to a newspaper that she had never “received even an incivility from any native Floridan.”
7. It’s also said that her book was a catalyst that helped spark the US Civil War. Harriet met Abraham Lincoln at one point and it’s said that he commented on meeting her, “So this is the little woman who brought on this big Civil War,” although there’s no evidence he actually said it and some believe it was no more than a story spread by her family. All we know for sure about their meeting comes from entries in their diaries. As well as slavery and emancipation, they discussed his love of open fires.
8. After the Civil War she turned her attention to campaigning for the rights of married women, who, at the time, were in a similar position to slaves, being unable to own property or enter into contracts, and all their money had to be turned over to their husbands and they could not draw any of it out for themselves.
9. Mark Twain was her neighbour in her later years. His description of her suggests she may have been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Twain describes her as a “pathetic figure” who needed to be cared for constantly by “a muscular Irish woman”.
10. She died at the age of 85. The date of her death, 1 July, has been adopted as a feast day in her honour by the Episcopal Church.

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