Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC01585

Author/Creator: Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1811-1896)

Place Written: Brunswick, Maine

Type: Autograph letter signed

Date: 20 March 1852

Pagination: 2 p. ; 25 x 20.5 cm.

Summary of Content: On its first day of publication in 1852, Stowe sends a copy [not present] of ”Uncle Tom’s Cabin” to Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. Slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833, and Stowe holds Britain up as a model for Americans. Written mostly in the third person. , , Stowe had consulted Horace Mann several days before writing this letter, asking for his advice as to how best to contact Prince Albert and other British noteworthies. Evidently, Mann’s advice had proved useful: Despite the ”republican simplicity” of this letter to the Royal Consort, Prince Albert responded with a courteous note of thanks. (See GLC01587 for a letter written by Queen Victoria in which she mentions Stowe and ”Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”), , Harriet and her husband Calvin would meet the royal couple four years later in Scotland. ”[W]e had just the very pleasantest little interview with the Queen that ever was.” Calvin Stowe would write. ”The Queen seemed really delighted to see my wife, and remarkably glad to see me for her sake. She pointed us out to Prince Albert, who made two most gracious bows to my wife and two to me, while the four royal children stared their big blue eyes almost out looking at the little authoress of ’Uncle Tom’s Cabin’” (Calvin Stowe, 29 August 1856).

People: Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896., Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, 1819-1861.

Historical Era: National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860

Full Transcript: To His Royal Highness Prince Albert, The author of this work feels that she has an apology for presenting it to Prince Albert because it concerns the great interests of humanity and from those noble & enlarged views of human progress, which she has at different times seen in his public speeches she has inferred that he has an eye & a heart for all that concerns the development & welfare of the human family., Ignorant of the forms of diplomatic address & the etiquette of rank, may she be pardoned for speaking with the republican simplicity of her own country as to one who possesses a nobility higher than that of rank or station., This simple narrative is an honest attempt to enlist the sympathies both of England & America in the sufferings of an oppressed race, to whom in less enlightened days both English and America were unjust. , The wrong on England’s part has been atoned in a manner worthy of herself, nor in all her strength & glory, is there any thing that adds such lustre to her name as the position she holds in relation to human freedom (may America yet emulate her example!) , [2] The appeal is in greater part as it should be to the writer’s own country, but when fugitives by thousands are crowding British shores she would enlist for them the sympathy of British hearts., We, in America, have been told that the throne of Earth’s mightiest nation is now filled by One less adorned by all this world can give of power and splendour, than by a good & noble heart - a heart ever ready to feel for the suffering the oppressed and the lowly., The author is encouraged by the thought that beneath the royal insignia of England throbs that woman’s & mother’s heart. May she ask that He who is nearest to her would present to her notice this simple story. Should it win from her compassionate nature, pitying thoughts for those multitudes of poor outcasts who have fled for shelter to the shadow of her throne, - it were enough - , May the blessing of [inserted: God] rest on the noble country from which America draws her lineage, & on Her the Queen of it. Tho all other thrones be shaken may hers founded deep in the hearts of her subjects, be established to Her & to Her children, thro all generations, With deep respect, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Brunswick Maine, March 20 1852.

Keywords/Subjects: African American History, Literature and Language Arts, Women’s History, Slavery, Global History and US Foreign Policy, Global History and US Foreign Policy, Abolition, Reform Movement

Sub Era: Slavery & Anti-slavery

Background: Stowe, a 41-year-old mother of six from Maine, had learned about slavery while living in Cincinnati, Ohio, across the Ohio River from slaveholding Kentucky. Her book, one of the first works to show an African American as a hero, placed slavery into a religious framework deeply meaningful to nineteenth-century Americans. The book quickly became one of the best-selling novels of all time. , , The novel describes two parallel stories of redemption and deliverance. Tom, who is sold down the river to the brutal Simon Legree, ultimately achieves spiritual salvation, while George and Eliza Harris achieve physical freedom. By awakening Northerners to the fact that slaves suffered just as the ancient Hebrews suffered bondage in Egypt, Stowe created a heightened awareness of slavery’s moral evil. , Stowe was a member of one of early nineteenth century America’s most influential families. Her father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), was a major figure in the shift from the established churches of the colonial period to the new era of denominational competition -- and from the doctrines of original sin and predestination to new notions of human agency, which regarded sin as voluntary rather than predetermined. After the disestablishment of Connecticut’s Congregational Church in 1818, Beecher became an advocate of reform and revivals as ways to combat barbarism and infidelity and ensure personal piety and public morality.

LOC Search Terms: Slavery, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Resource: Harriet Beecher Stowe sends Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Victoria and Albert, 1852