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Papers of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Accession #6318, etc., Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
6318-a: Purchase February 25, 1963 6318-b: Purchase April 1, 1964 6318-c: Deposit July 7, 1964; Gift July 1, 1991 6318-d: Deposit April 20, 1965; Gift July 1, 1991 6318-e: Purchase May 15, 1965 6318-f: Transfer from Rare Books, July 23, 1965 6318-g: Purchase December 3, 1965 6318-h: Purchase December 30, 1966 6318-i: Purchase October 2, 1968 6318-j: Deposit April 2, 1970; Gift July 1, 1991 6318-k: Purchase September 3, 2003
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811 at Litchfield, Connecticut, the daughter of abolitionist Congregational minister Lyman Ward Beecher and Roxana Foote Beecher. The first twelve years of her life were spent in the intellectual atmosphere of Litchfield, which was a famous resort of ministers, judges, lawyers and professional men of superior attainments.
At about the age of twelve, Stowe went to Hartford, where her sister Catherine had opened the Hartford Female Academy. While there she was known as an absent-minded and moody young lady, odd in her manner and habits, but a fine scholar, excelling especially in the writing of compositions. In 1832, the Beecher family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where Lyman Ward Beecher assumed the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary. Stowe taught at the Western Female Institute.
While living in Cincinnati, Stowe met numerous fugitive slaves and traveled to Kentucky where she witnessed the brutality of slavery first-hand. It was also in Cincinnati that Harriet Beecher met her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe, a teacher at the Western Female Institute. In 1850, Calvin Stowe accepted a teaching position at Bowdoin College and the couple moved to Brunswick, Maine. Stowe started writing Uncle Tom's Cabin upon her arrival in Brunswick. Many of the characters in her book mirrored real-life individuals such as Josiah Henson, a fugitive slave who escaped from Kentucky to Canada along the Underground Railroad with his wife and two children.
Stowe was catapulted to international fame with the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1851. Published as a serial in the abolitionist newspaper, The National Era, in 1851 and in book form the following year, Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most famous example of antislavery literature. The book became an overnight sensation in the United States and Europe selling more than 300,000 copies in the first year of publication. Stowe became a celebrity, speaking against slavery both in America and Europe.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was dismissed by some as abolitionist propaganda; yet Tolstoy deemed it a great work of literature "flowing from love of God and man." She wrote A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) extensively documenting the realities on which the book was based, to refute Southern critics who tried to argue that it was inauthentic. Stowe published a second anti-slavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), which told the story of a dramatic attempt at slave rebellion. When Stowe met Abraham Lincoln in 1862 during the Civil War, he reportedly greeted her, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"
Stowe's later works did not gain the same popularity as Uncle Tom's Cabin. She published novels, studies of social life, essays, and a small volume of religious poems. The Stowes lived in Hartford in summer and spent their winters in Florida, where they had a luxurious home. The Pearl of Orr's Island (1862), Old-Town Folks (1869), and Poganuc People (1878) were partly based on her husband's childhood reminiscenes and are among the first examples of local color writing in New England. Poganuc People was Stowe's last novel. Her mental faculties failed in 1888, two years after the death of her husband. She died on July 1, 1896 in Hartford, Connecticut.
The Papers of Harriet Beecher Stowe consist of literary manuscripts, correspondence, prints, photographs and engravings, and other miscellaneous items. Correspondence is primarily between family and friends, but also includes are letters to publishers.
The manuscripts include her poetry, quotations, and two pages from the original manuscript of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Also included are numerous engravings and photographs of Harriet Beecher Stowe at various stages of her life.
Correspondents include: Richard Bentley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Clarke Beeton & Co., the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, the Duchess of Sutherland, Emily Hale, Houghton Mifflin & Co., Lord Denman, Lord Morpeth, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Mary Swift.
The collection is arranged in four series: Series I: Literary manuscripts, are arranged alphabetically by title or first line Series II: Correspondence, is arranged alphabetically by correspondent Series III: Miscellaneous documents, are arranged chronologically Series IV: Prints, photographs and engravings, are arranged by physical format.
#6318-c
Part of the first draft of the first chapter of Uncle Tom's Cabin. #6318-c
With note regarding Dingle Bank. #6318-c
With typed transcript (4 pp.) and note (1 p.). #6318-c
With related correspondence to [James T.] Fields. Harriet Beecher Stowe portrait on verso. Mounted. #6318-c
From Uncle Tom's Cabin, page 179. #6318-c
With autograph corrections. #6318-j
Regarding July 4th. #6318-c
With autograph corrections. #6318-j
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See folder 18: C. E. Stowe to Mr. Darwin C. Pavey, 1888 November 30. #6318-c
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Regarding Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Byron controversy. #6318-b
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With address leaf. Possibly a manuscript fragment. #6318-c
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Regarding Stowe's request for legal counsel in regard to a case of libel concerning Mr. Parker. #6318-c
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Copy, possibly in the hand of Stowe's daughter, Hattie.
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Related correspondence regarding "Sister H." on verso dated 1892, July 23. #6318-c
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Original tipped in "A New England Sketch, " PS2954.N3 1841. #6318-f
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With transcript. #6318-c
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Original tipped in volume I of The Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe PS2950.1896. #6318-d
Model for Uncle Tom. #6318-c
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By J. C. Buttre; from the portrait by George Richmond. #6318-c
By H. W. Smith; from the portrait by George Richmond. #6318-c
By R. Young; from an original portrait. #6318-c
By T. Johnson; from a photograph by Sarony. #6318-c
From the original painting by Chappel. #6318-a
By J. C. Buttre. #6318-a
One half of a stereopticon photograph. With an 8x10 black and white reproduction. #6318-c
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#6318-c
Same image as folder 108 but with background garden painted out. Image signed and dated: "Harriet Beecher Stowe January 4 1887." #6318-c
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From an unidentified newspaper. Brief description of the impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin. #6318-c
From a photograph taken about 1858; from an unidentified magazine. #6318-c
From an unidentified magazine
From unidentified magazines
By Jacques Reich. #7267