Uncle Tom's Cabin - Have you read it?

[bloom]

It was the best selling novel of the 19th century (best selling book after the Bible).

And I'm wondering how many people here have actually read it.

It is held up as a positive influence in invigorating abolition and as having a role in the Civil War.

And at the same time there are the mis-characterizations of "Uncle Tom".

There is quite a bit of religion in it - and ethics. Christians and Atheists are both shown in positive or negative lights - through various characters.

[texpatriot2004]

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the "little lady that started the war"

according to President Lincoln's comment to her. It's a great book about a horrible subject.

[bloom]

5. I could see the book

still being a threat to the ideas of unregulated (or little regulated) capitalism.

From one synopsis:

"Many modern readers, however, have found in her antislavery arguments a critique against "masculine" values of individualism, competition, and the marketplace—and a concomitant affirmation of "feminine" values of community, love, and domesticity."

http://www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/stowe-harriet-beecher-uncle-tom-s-cabin-life-among

__________________

Even though slavery has always been obviously a horrible thing - it becomes more horrible in her telling of it. Where it's easy for the reader to become more empathetic and not merely sympathetic to the people who lived those lives.

I'm surprised it's not required reading for more people in high school. It was (is?) routinely mentioned for it's importance - but not like people were expected to read it.

[texpatriot2004]

6. I think it should be required reading, it was for me in College not

High School.

And I like what you say that the subject gets even more horrid in her telling of it...good point there.

[bloom]

7. self delete

wrong place

[Vorta]

2. I've read it, but I liked the "King And I" version better.

[kwassa]

3. Uncle Tom's actual cabin recently sold for $1 million

http://dc.about.com/od/historichomes/a/UncleTomsCabin.htm

Montgomery County, Maryland has agreed to purchase the one-acre historic site and former home of Josiah Henson, a slave that served as Harriet Beecher Stowe's model for her novel on slavery, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The heirs of Marcel and Hildegarde Mallet-Prevost who owned the property since the 1960s and County officials hope to settle on the property and hold a deed transfer ceremony on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, on Monday, January 16, 2006.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is located at 11420 Old Georgetown Road in Rockville, Maryland. It was originally a tobacco plantation, including an 18th century mainhouse with log kitchen wing. Montgomery County will pay $1 million for the property and it will become part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission's 32,639-acre park system. The property will be restored and made accessible to the public.

[FuzzySlippers]

4. It was assigned reading for my "Religious Thought in America"

class in college, so I guess I kinda skimmed it. ;)

[bloom]

8. I am curious about what anti-religious people think about it.

Esp. in a do the ends justify the means sort of way.

"Its anti-slavery message, in direct response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, provoked unprecedented levels of critical disagreement throughout the North and South, serving as a catalyst for sectional conflict."

http://www.enotes.com/nineteenth-century-criticism/stowe-harriet-beecher-uncle-tom-s-cabin-life-among



The book is at once critical of Christianity - esp. the sort of Christianity which people employ to justify their atrocities. At the same time Christianity is held up as a model - through the actions of the Quakers who help the slaves escape - and as a method of maintaining ones humanity.

It seems to me that the book challenges absolutist thinking - as regards religion. It's clear that slavery is bad. Religion could go either way. As could those with no religion.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. I read it in junior high school, but not as a requirement

I think it gained its bad reputation from its association with minstrel shows, which put on sensationalized versions with white people in blackface portraying the African-American roles and making many of them into comic caricatures and blonde little Eva becoming the central figure.

It played an extremely important role in the 19th century, that of making the realities of slavery accessible to the general public by means of an interesting story line. There are accounts of brutal beatings, families being torn apart, and implied (this was Victorian times, after all) sexual exploitation of African-American women by white masters and overseers.

It forced Northerners, who could have otherwise avoided thinking about slavery, to see what was happening in their own country.

[bloom]

10. The minstrel show

reputation is unfortunate (the culture of which is so offensive) - and that for some people - that's all they know about the idea of "Uncle Tom". It sounds like some bad movies were made early in the 20th century, also - that may not have had the best intentions, either.

This is site devoted to shedding some light on some of that - http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc/


It's interesting to consider how important the book was in it's historical context. It sounds like opposition to slavery had been growing and Stowe's book came out at just the right time. 1952 seems to be considered a pivotal year.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, which appeared first in serial form in an abolitionist newspaper, The National Era, in 1851-52, was written largely in Brunswick. In 1852 the story was published in book form in two volumes. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a best seller in the United States, England, Europe, Asia, and translated into over 60 languages. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, which deeply distressed Harriet, was a factor in inspiring her to write Uncle Tom's Cabin. This Act made it a crime for citizens of free states to give aid to runaway enslaved people.

http://www.harrietbeecherstowe.org/life/#uncle

From:

Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

...Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief...

Adopted December 24, 1860

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/scarsec.htm

It seems odd to me that Civil War historians don't seem to pay much attention to the book. One site had a story about Stowe's son Fredrick being in the Civil War. Maybe they just assumed that people would understand the importance of the book - so nobody bothered to mention it. :shrug:

But I'm afraid by the way that I see the phrase "Uncle Tom" used - that a lot of people don't get it. Since "Uncle Tom" as it is used by a lot of people does not represent the "Uncle Tom" that is in the book. It would be a shame if historians were so afraid of the mis-characterization of it - that they ignored the book's impact - how widely read it was - and all of that.

Of course, some people could see it as a feminist issue. Here is this book written by a woman that was the most widely read book of the 19th century (after the Bible), a book that would have had a huge impact on public opinion in regards to the non-acceptance of slavery and historians are going to ignore it?

:wtf:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

11. Read it in high school

Wonderfully Victorian and schmaltzy.

Powerful book, however....because it was written for the people, not the high brows.

[bloom]

12. It was pretty schmaltzy.

I'm afraid that schools could be afraid to have people read it because of how religious it is.

But I think if high school students read it as a piece of writing that affected history - it should be alright.

Maybe there could be a compromise - the Biology teachers get to teach evolution without interference (about creationism and all) and the History teachers get to teach history - even if religion was a part of it.