Uncle Tom's Cabin and
the Matter of Influence
Books
Your best starting place, without question is The
Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin (New York: W.W. Norton
& Co., c2007). This extraordinary resource was edited
and annotated by Hollis Robbins, the author of the essay
you’ve just read, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
While the suggested readings in this edition will take
you to most of the books you need, these appeared too
late to be included in Robbins’s and Gates’s
lists:
Ammons, Elizabeth (Ed.). Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin: A Casebook. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007.
An exceptionally helpful volume in the Casebooks in
Criticism series, offering a generous collections of
essays about the novel from the last 150 years.
Morgan, Jo-Ann. Uncle Tom's Cabin as Visual Culture.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, c2007.
For background on the novel’s author, look at
History Now’s September 2005 issue on the Abolition
movement, particularly the essay on “Abolition
and Antebellum Reform":
/historynow/09_2005/historian.php
and my resource suggestions there:
/historynow/09_2005/ask2b.php
This book focuses directly on reaction to the Fugitive
Slave Law:
Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers: Enforcement
of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1970.
These books on Stowe and may be helpful:
Boydston, Jeanne. The Limits of Sisterhood: The
Beecher Sisters on Women's Rights and Woman's Sphere.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, c1988.
White, Barbara Anne. The Beecher Sisters.
New Haven: Yale University Press, c2003.
Wilson, Robert Forrest. Crusader in Crinoline: The
Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Philadelphia: J.
B. Lippincott Company, c1941.
For guidance on using Uncle Tom’s Cabin
in the classroom, look at:
Ammons, Elizabeth and Susan Belasco (Eds). Approaches
to Teaching Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. New York:
Modern Language Association of America, 2000.
Internet Resources
We’re really in luck here. There are two wonderful
websites devoted to Harriet Beecher Stowe and her best
known novel. They not only have great original resources
of their own, but they include up to date links to other
materials on the web.
The first is Stephen Railton’s superb “Uncle
Tom’s Cabin and American Culture” website
on the University of Virginia Website:
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/index2f.html
The basis of the Website, of course is the texts of
various editions of the novel, complete with illustrations,
as well as Stowe’s Key to Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, the book she published in 1855 to answer
attacks on the truthfulness of her novel. There is also
a fascinating “pre-texts” segment that gives
you access to texts or books, broadsides, and pamphlets
that anticipated the novel or influenced Stowe. Then
you have a generous collection of, responses to the
novel from the date of its publication through 1930s,
You can go on to children’s books, stage and film
versions (including clips from early movies), “tomitudes,”
(objects based on the novel’s characters), and
songs and music inspired by the novel.
Be sure to look at the lesson plans offered at the
site:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc/interpret/lessons/lessonshpf.html
And don’t ignore my personal favorites –
the “Interpretive Exhibits” section –
a series of first rate essays by scholars in the field,
each illustrated by links to images and texts in the
Website’s archive. Topics range from Stowe’s
life to the history of nineteenth century book publication
to film and stage versions of the tale:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc/interpret/interframe.html
More modest in scope but equally good is the Website
for the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut.
They provide an excellent essay on Stowe and her work:
http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/life/
Be sure to check the “teachers’ resources”.
You’ll find both a wonderful series of documents
and essays produced by a Teacher Institute at the Center
– wonderful materials on Stowe, the Fugitive Slave
Law and abolitionism and slavery in general:
http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/teacher_student
and fine lesson plans:
http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/teacher_student/lessons/
If you’re lucky enough to be in Connecticut,
be sure to visit the Center, housed on the grounds of
Stowe’s home in Hartford. I recommend it thoroughly
– and if you have time, you can drop in next door
to see the much grander home of Stowe’s neighbor,
Mark Twain.
