Yapp is a magazine created by the 2012-2013 Book and Digital Media Studies
master's students at Leiden University.
The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/28849 holds the full collection of Yapp in
the Leiden University Repository.
Copyright information
Text: copyright © 2013 (Marleen van Os). Licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Image: Tauchnitz (Leipzig).
Eva meets Uncle Tom. Illustration from the 1852 Tauchnitz edition.
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin:
A woman’s struggle against slavery
marleen van os
There is no bright side to slavery.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was a highly influential book in the
anti-slavery movement of the late nineteenth century. It centres on Tom and
Eliza, two African-American slaves, each with their own families to take care of.
They attempt to escape from their owners after mistreatment and threats of being
sold. Eliza succeeds and survives with her child, but Tom finds a different kind
of freedom: his owner, Simon Legree, whips him to death because of his devout
Christian faith and his refusal to betray other slaves. The novel was successful
the moment it was published and received numerous and various reactions from
different groups in society. Stowe became an important figure as a white female
author protesting against slavery. The book has been continuously in print since
its first publication and continues to be read widely, including as a standard
school text, since it was considered a book for children, albeit in a version slightly
adapted from the first edition.
The book was first published as a serial in the anti-slavery journal The
Nationalist Era in 1851. While this was going on regularly, Stowe approached
publishers for a complete publication in the form of a novel. Several publishers,
including the one that had already published Stowe’s and her sister’s earlier work,
passed on the opportunity, afraid of the fierce responses the book would arouse
and the possibility of losing customers for their other publications. The publisher
that did take up the challenge was John P. Jewett. He advertised widely and
cleverly for the book, giving it slogans like ‘The Story of the Age’. Sales boomed
right from the start; the first 5,000 copies were sold within a week. Many more
copies were subsequently printed and in one year a total of 500,000 were sold
in America and England. The first edition was available in both paper and cloth
bindings; the cloth option included the possibility of a special edition with extra
gilt decorations. Many other editions followed, with illustrations continually
changed and added. Translations were also made from the start, eventually in
over sixty languages. Special editions included, for instance, the ‘Edition for the
Million’. The first was created especially for common people who could not afford
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expensive books. It was an unillustrated version printed rather sloppily, containing
endorsements of lavish praise and large, bold typography meant to entice buyers.
The illustrated edition, in contrast, was created for a more wealthy audience who
could appreciate—and afford—well-printed books. This version was also often
used as a gift.
From its inception Uncle Tom’s Cabin had an enormous impact on
American society. It was a response to the Fugitive Slave Act from 1850, decreeing
that all runaway slaves found by officers should be returned to their masters, even
if they had already reached free bordering states. They had no rights and could
not defend themselves in any way. Officers who did not comply risked a thousand
dollar fine. This act, and reactionary publications like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, resulted
in an increasingly active abolitionist movement.
The values this book expresses reached out to a wide audience. The fact
that Christian faith features centrally invoked sympathy in many readers. Stowe,
as a white female writer, also set the book apart from previously published antislavery stories, which often came from African-American ex-slaves themselves.
They did not have as great an influence as a middle class woman like Stowe, who
came from an abolitionist family that protected fugitive slaves. As she herself was
from the South and understood the sentimental climate, Stowe also decided not to
focus on racial issues but more on values of family and religion—values that were
considered universal regardless of race.
African-American slaves and the anti-slavery movement naturally
applauded the book and felt supported by it. The slave-traders and employers,
however, heavily opposed the book and argued that the story had no sense of
truth and that slaves were happy with their situation. As a response to this,
Stowe published a follow-up book called The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in which
she selected only some of the many true stories she had collected from talking
directly to slaves. This book served to support and verify her original story. In the
introductory chapter, she writes to readers about the horrors of slavery:
Slavery, in some of its workings, is too dreadful for the purposes
of art. A work which should represent it strictly as it is would be a
work which could not be read. And all works which ever mean to
give pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or they cannot succeed.
Later on, however, supporters of Stowe’s cause began to criticize her for
adopting a condescending stance towards African-Americans and reinforcing
the stereotypes in her novel. The many spin-offs and theatre adaptations that
followed the book also helped perpetuate these stereotypes by over-caricaturizing
the black characters. Stowe did not authorize these dramatizations of her novel,
but could not act against them because of flaws in the copyright on the book.
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Claims became public that the book was never properly copyrighted. This claim
was opposed, but there definitely were holes in the copyright, which allowed
publishers and other people to create new editions and adaptations in abundance.
All issues surrounding the book combined, it has had quite an active and
tumultuous history. Despite all the criticism and legal issues, one thing that Uncle
Tom’s Cabin did accomplish was to obtain a solid position in the history of the
abolitionist movement and raise widespread awareness of the untenable situation
of slavery. The continuing controversy surrounding the novel has perhaps only
increased its fame and spread its message across America and the world.
Bibliography
Parfait, C. The Publishing History of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852-2002. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
Patkus, R. D. and M. C. Schlosser. “Aspects of the Publishing History of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1851-1900.”
Vassar College Libraries. 13 Nov. 2012 <http://specialcollections.vassar.edu/exhibits/stowe/essay2.
html>.
“Slave Narratives and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Africans in America. 13 Nov. 2012 <http://www.pbs.org/
wgbh/aia/part4/4p2958.html>.
Stowe, H. B. A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1853.
Stowe, H. B. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1852.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 2011. Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. 13 Nov. 2012 <http://www.
harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/utc/>.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin: A 19th-Century Bestseller.” Publishers’ Bindings Online: 1815-1930: The Art of Books.
2006. 13 Nov. 2012 <http://bindings.lib.ua.edu/gallery/uncletom.html>.
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