The daughter of a minister and born in rural New England, Harriet Beecher Stowe brought attention to the plight of slaves when she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. She researched her book by interviewing escaped slaves as well as slave owners. Stowe’s novel was read by millions of people throughout the United States and served as an inspiration for the abolitionist cause. It is said that when she met President Abraham Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War in 1862, he commented, “So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war.”
