Loves of Harriet Beecher StoweThe author of Hawthorne in Concord “brings [Stowe] to life in all her glory, in a book at once so dramatic and so subtle that it rivals the best fiction” (Debby Applegate, author of The Most Famous Man in America). Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin forced an ambivalent North to confront the atrocities of slavery, yet it was just one of many accomplishments of the Beechers, the most eminent American family of the nineteenth century. Historian Philip McFarland follows the Beecher clan to the boomtown of Cincinnati, where Harriet’s glimpses of slavery across the Kentucky border moved her to pen Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We meet Harriet’s loves: her father Lyman, her husband Calvin, and her brother Henry, the most famous preacher of his time. As McFarland leads us through Harriet’s ever-changing world, he traces the arc of her literary career from her hard-scrabble beginnings to her ascendancy as the most renowned author of her day. Through the portrait of a defining American family, Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe opens into an unforgettable rendering of mid-nineteenth century America in the midst of unprecedented social and demographic explosions. To this day, Uncle Tom’s Cabin reverberates as a crucial document in Western culture. “Often dismissed even by her admirers as a pious faculty wife who just happened to write the book of the century, Harriet Beecher Stowe emerges in Philip McFarland’s biography in all her complexity and genius.” —Charles Calhoun, author of Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life and The Gilded Age |
From inside the book
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Page 4
... North End. But now, toward the end of his sixth decade, the nationally known Reverend Lyman Beecher had been offered a new, wonderful opportunity to serve both God and his country. For some time he had been thinking about the West in ...
... North End. But now, toward the end of his sixth decade, the nationally known Reverend Lyman Beecher had been offered a new, wonderful opportunity to serve both God and his country. For some time he had been thinking about the West in ...
Page 19
... North who conducted trade with southern states. Accordingly, on August 16, 1834, with President Beecher away in the East raising money for the seminary, Lane's trustees suppressed the nascent antislavery society and decreed that any ...
... North who conducted trade with southern states. Accordingly, on August 16, 1834, with President Beecher away in the East raising money for the seminary, Lane's trustees suppressed the nascent antislavery society and decreed that any ...
Page 30
... North End. That church's pastor, Reverend Lyman Beecher, readily recognizing Stowe's many gifts, persuaded this professor of Greek to join him out west and teach biblical literature at the newly founded Lane Theological Seminary. In ...
... North End. That church's pastor, Reverend Lyman Beecher, readily recognizing Stowe's many gifts, persuaded this professor of Greek to join him out west and teach biblical literature at the newly founded Lane Theological Seminary. In ...
Page 47
... North Carolina, where a Mrs. Devereaux sent another $50, with others adding their smaller sums. “For all I have had trouble,” Harriet wrote the following March, “I can think of nothing but the greatness and richness of God's mercy to me ...
... North Carolina, where a Mrs. Devereaux sent another $50, with others adding their smaller sums. “For all I have had trouble,” Harriet wrote the following March, “I can think of nothing but the greatness and richness of God's mercy to me ...
Page 65
... North, whites had passed laws at every level—federal, state, and municipal —that insisted on African-Americans' inferiority. In some “free” states blacks were forbidden to settle at all; and virtually every state in the North isolated ...
... North, whites had passed laws at every level—federal, state, and municipal —that insisted on African-Americans' inferiority. In some “free” states blacks were forbidden to settle at all; and virtually every state in the North isolated ...
Contents
3 | |
11 | |
23 | |
32 | |
43 | |
54 | |
63 | |
Uncle Toms Cabin | 74 |
Civil War | 157 |
Postbellum | 167 |
A Vindication | 177 |
Aftermath | 187 |
henry | 195 |
The Beechers | 197 |
Religion | 206 |
Brooklyn | 215 |
Reception | 83 |
Dark Places | 91 |
lyman | 99 |
To England | 101 |
Culture | 112 |
Looking Back | 121 |
Return to Europe | 131 |
Heartbreak | 140 |
The Ministers Wooing | 149 |
Changing America | 225 |
My Wife and I | 235 |
Scandal | 245 |
Inside the Home | 254 |
Trial | 263 |
Late Years | 274 |
notes | 293 |
works cited | 315 |
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Common terms and phrases
abolitionist American Andover appeared Autobiography of Lyman Boston Brooklyn brother Brunswick C. E. Stowe Calvin Stowe Calvinist Catharine Catharine Beecher century Charles Charley child Cincinnati congregation daughter dead dear death decade Dred earlier early east editor Edward England Essays family’s father feel felt Fred George Georgiana God’s Harriet Beecher Stowe Hartford Hatty heart Hedrick Henry Ward Beecher Henry’s husband Ibid Lady Byron Lady Byron Vindicated Lane Seminary Lane Theological Seminary later letter Litchfield living Lord Byron Lyman Beecher meanwhile minister Minister’s months mother never novel Ohio Plymouth Church poet poet’s Professor Stowe quoted readers Reverend sermons slave slavery South southern spirit story Stowe’s Theodore Tilton thing Tilton tion Uncle Tom’s Cabin Victoria Woodhull Walnut Hills wife wife’s woman women writing wrote York young