Case-I

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

No work of American fiction has had a bigger impact than Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe was an aspiring 40-year-old author in 1851, when she published the story’s first chapter in the anti-slavery newspaper The National Era. She hoped it would expose the barbarism and immorality of American slavery. The subsequent novel sold its entire initial 5,000-print run in only two days.

The National Era edition shown here is original and the book is from the novel’s first printing. After they appeared, Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a sensation across the globe. As it found new audiences, it challenged each reader to reject or accept the horrors of slavery—moving abolitionism from the sidelines of American culture to the center. It’s for this reason President Abraham Lincoln reportedly told Stowe “You’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”

Gift of Philip D. Sang, 1983