Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Beginning

• Born on June 14, 1811 in Litchfield Connecticut

• Father: Lyman Beecher• Mother: Roxana Foote

Beecher• Seventh of eight children• Baptized Harriet Elizabeth

Beecher

Growing Up

• Mother died when Harriet was four• Father preached anti-slavery

sermons throughout Harriet's childhood

• Hartford Female Academy was her first school

• Loved to read books and wanted to write her own novel.

Cincinnati

• Father became President of a Theological Seminary

• Family moved to Cincinnati• Harriet began teaching• Joined the Literary Society• Met Professor Calvin Ellis Stowe

Calvin Ellis Stowe

• Met Harriet at the Literary Society• Wife passed away two years after

their meeting• Harriet and Calvin were wed in 1836• Had a large family together• Professor at Bowdoin College in

Maine

Children

• Twins: Eliza and Harriet• Henry• Fredrick• Georgiana• Samuel Charles• Charles

Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good.

Writing

• Began writing with her book The Mayflower

• Wrote as a freelancer for local papers

• Wrote installments for the antislavery journal National Era

• Installments were called Life among the Lowly

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Life Among the Lowly was published as Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1842

• Instantly a bestseller• Told the cruelty that slaves faced

everyday as plantation workers• Opened the eyes of many Americans

“I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation.”

The Civil War

• 1861 the war broke out• Many believe Uncle Tom’s Cabin

contributed to the outbreak• Abraham Lincoln greeted Harriet

with “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War. ”

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

The End

• Lived in Hartford, Connecticut during her last 23 summers

• Wintered in Mandarin, Florida

• Died on July 1, 1896• Buried on the grounds of

Phillip Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

The past, the present, and the future are really

one: they are today.