Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe

                Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was born on June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, Connecticut.  Her father was Lyman Beecher, a leading Congregational clergyman; her mother passed away when Harriet was only four years old.  Her eldest sister set up a school in Hartford where Harriet was first a student and afterward a teacher.  She married Professor Calvin e. Stowe in January, 1836; after her marriage she wrote many short stories, essays, and articles for various publications.

                Mrs. Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in early 1851.  It ran as a weekly serial in the National Era, an anti-slavery paper in Washington, D.C. as well as being released in book form.  The sensational story stirred deep emotions and revealed the cruelties and injustices of slavery.  Abolitionists used Uncle Tom’s Cabin to fan the flames leading to the Civil War.

                Mrs. Stowe traveled widely and published many volumes before she passed away on July 1, 1896, in Hartford, Connecticut.