“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

This is the novel that gave slavery a bad name.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wroteUncle Tom’s Cabinto promote the abolitionist cause, basing some of her novel on the testimony of an escaped slave. Her central character was a man of dignity, a good Christian, who suffered the abuses of slavery nobly and died protecting others. So how did Uncle Tom become the byword for a race traitor — a “shuffling, kowtowing, sniveling coward”? A scholar traces Tom’s unfortunate journey through pop culture, and a controversial writer who’s been called an Uncle Tom decides to own it: “He was a transformative figure for the people around him. He was very powerful, even though he seemingly had no power.”

Excerpts from Harriet Beecher Stowe’sUncle Tom’s Cabinused in this story are from the Blackstone Audio and Trout Lake Media audiobooks.

Special thanks to Carver Clark Gayton and Adena Spingarn who each took time from their own research on Uncle Tom’s Cabin to contribute to this piece.

(Originally aired October 25, 2013)

This illustration by Hammatt Billings appears in the first edition ofUncle Tom’s Cabin

(Courtesy Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive (public domain))

Legree threatens Tom as he is about to order Tom’s fatal beating, depicted in this scene on a colored glass lantern plate

(Courtesy of The American Magic Lantern Theater)

This illustration comes from an 1853 British edition ofUncle Tom’s Cabin

(Courtesy Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive & Clifton Walter Barrett Collection, University of Virginia (public domain))

This scene depicts Eva, the child Tom cares for, dying of tuberculosis

(Courtesy of The American Magic Lantern Theater)

A promotional card from the 1880s advertises the most dramatic moments in a theatrical version ofUncle Tom’s Cabin

(Courtesy Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive and Michael Tedesco)

A photograph of an early 1900s theatrical production ofUncle Tom’s Cabin

(Courtesy of The Ohio State University Libraries and the Jerome Lawrence and
Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute)

Slideshow: Uncle Tom in popular culture