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 10
... slave and sport of morbid feeling and unreasonable prejudice.” But why, surrounded by family and with so much to sustain her, was she not more content with her lot? Harriet's few close friends were back east, and to the closest of them ...
... slave and sport of morbid feeling and unreasonable prejudice.” But why, surrounded by family and with so much to sustain her, was she not more content with her lot? Harriet's few close friends were back east, and to the closest of them ...
Page 14
... slaves over from Kentucky, its Indians and trappers and French down from northern wilds. The New England influence that Catharine Beecher had observed appeared well diluted by now, as waves of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere kept ...
... slaves over from Kentucky, its Indians and trappers and French down from northern wilds. The New England influence that Catharine Beecher had observed appeared well diluted by now, as waves of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere kept ...
Page 18
... for two and a half hours each to debate an issue that most of their countrymen would rather see left alone. The issue was what to do about slavery. V3612p01.pmd 2/16/07, 3:22 PM 18. loves. of. harriet. beecher. stowe. • 18.
... for two and a half hours each to debate an issue that most of their countrymen would rather see left alone. The issue was what to do about slavery. V3612p01.pmd 2/16/07, 3:22 PM 18. loves. of. harriet. beecher. stowe. • 18.
Page 19
... slaves be set up in colonies overseas, and should steps be taken to abolish the institution of slavery altogether—and if so, gradually or all at once, and by persuasion or direct action? Seventeen seminarians who had witnessed slavery's ...
... slaves be set up in colonies overseas, and should steps be taken to abolish the institution of slavery altogether—and if so, gradually or all at once, and by persuasion or direct action? Seventeen seminarians who had witnessed slavery's ...
Page 39
... slave owner who had experienced a change of heart—to depart the riverport and find a new career, leaving his newspaper, the Philanthropist, in the hands of the more moderate Dr. Gamaliel Bailey to edit and publish. (Birney would go on ...
... slave owner who had experienced a change of heart—to depart the riverport and find a new career, leaving his newspaper, the Philanthropist, in the hands of the more moderate Dr. Gamaliel Bailey to edit and publish. (Birney would go on ...
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