Uncle Tom's Cabin
Friday March 20, 2009
On March 20, 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published. Few books have had such an effect on America. This book had a major influence on the way the public viewed slavery. Uncle Tom's Cabin established Stowe's reputation as a woman of letters and a literary hero while rallying many to fight for abolition. The coming Civil War would once and for all end the issue of slavery in America with Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and then the Thirteenth Amendment.
Comments
I just finished reading Gone with the Wind and it really helped me to see the other side of the war. Although the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin told a convicting and moving story it was only the story of one part of the south and many northerners used it to judge the rest of the south and group them all together. Unfortunately it wasn’t that easy and it led to problems down the road. No one ever tells that side of the story
Both “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Gone With the Wind” were written by women who had their own agendas about the ante-bellum South.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolutionist. She wrote in the melodramatic style of her era to hammer home the indecency of men owning men. Uncle Tom was more a Christian than the “Christians” who owned slaves. She had read slave narratives and interviewed escaped slaves such as Josiah Henson, who was active in establishing a settlement for fugitives in Canada. Read some of those accounts under Slaves-United States, Fugitive slaves-United States and Underground Railroad at your library, or at least a biography of Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, to see what they had to endure.
Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone with the Wind, was descended on her mother’s side from Southern planters. She saw her ancestors lives as a sort of chivalric Avalon of gallant knights, strong beneath the softness ladies and loyal but unthinking servants.
Fans of each have accused the other author of portraying a false South. There certainly were servants loyal to their masters. There were masters who treated their ‘people’ humanely – much like lords treated their peasants humanely [or not] in Europe. But, like those European lords, Southern plantation owners did not believe their ‘people’ were like them, therefore not worthy to be treated as equal human beings under God and the Constitution. So called ‘poor whites’ despised the blacks as well, and that ‘master race’ mentality went a long way to causing ‘Jim Crow’ laws in the South and hostility when southerners of both races moved into the Detroit auto plants in the 20’s and 30’s.
Gone with the Wind is one of my favourite books, and it does reflect the passions of a loyal Southern lady; but, for all its faults, I think Uncle Tom is a more accurate depiction of the 1850’s US South
While some may not accept it, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a political polemic, merely propaganda. While the cause is now view as legitimate, it should be so acknowledged and recognize as akin to much of todays political press and literature intent upon explicitly or subtly influencing public opinion.
for kate: there is no other side to slavery.and just because it is easier to leave bad alone doesnt make it ok to leave it bad. so tell that side of the story.
Jazmine: I don’t think that Kate was saying that slavery was OK. I believe she was referring to the fact that more people in the US are familiar with how things were in the North before, during and immediately following the War. After all, history is written by the victors.
But “Gone With The Wind” tells the story of how life was lived by the Southern planter class in the face of starvation, defeat, degradation and the stunning shock of one’s entire world falling to pieces. I’ve read of Scarlett being an allegory for the city of Atlanta itself. She was born the same year the town was founded as Marthasville. She “fell” and was defeated after a long struggle against all odds. She was tough and gritty and rose up to nouveau-riche success but was eventually to learn what’s more important than anything: personal fulfillment. Her mother represented the Old Ways, gentility and manners; her father, the scrappy up-and-comer who injected a little much-needed hybrid vigor into the system. Aunt Pittypat represented the silliness of some of the conventions and customs. Mammy and Melanie were the steel spines that held everyone up throughout the troubled times. Ashley was the dithering soul who was lost in the struggle.
It’s been decades since I read or critiqued “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” so I can’t really make the same kinds of analyses. Anyone…?
I don’t believe it was as easy as saying that there were two sides (North v/s South) regarding slavery. But then I tend to give individuals more credit than most people in modern society. For example, I’ve extensively traced my lineage in this country back to the 1650’s. In the years leading up to the civil war I had ancestors both in the north and the south, but mainly in the north. While my southern ancestors were staunch abolitionists, their norther counterparts were bringing in slaves and selling them in northern cities like Boston. I suggest that anyone who is interested in really learning what life was like back then to find and read journals written at the time. One journal in particular was written by William T. Johnson, a black slave owner who resided in Mississippi and gives a first hand experience of what life was like during the time. I believe that the more you learn of people’s personal experiences and ideas the more you realize that there is more to this nation’s history than we are spoon fed as children. Especially during those controversial times, things were not always black and white…. or north and south.
Slavery in any form is wrong. End of story and there are no two sides about it. The causes of the civil war, there was actually more than one issue at hand. The suggestion that the brutality of slavery that existed during that time frame had a gentle side is absurd.
I have a question, I recently bought an edition of Uncle Toms Cabin it has a red leather cover with Uncle Toms Cabin in gold lettering. Does any one know anything about this? If so please reply.
im from deep south. and red as a fox. four beautiful brown children which ive made them to read and understand the turmoil of those times. my mother and father are natives in the u.s.. our tribes have had to compromise, wish all could.