Household Papers and Stories

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was an American author and abolitionist, famous for writing Uncle Tom's Cabin, first published in 1852. Stowe wrote the novel as an angry response to the 1850 passage of the second Fugitive Slave Act, which punished those who aided runaway slaves and diminished the rights of fugitives as well as freed slaves. It was the best-selling novel of the 19th century (and the second best-selling book of the century after the Bible) and is credited with helping to fuel the abolitionist cause in the United States prior to the American Civil War.