Harriet Beecher Stowe Biography

Name at birth: Harriet Elizabeth Beecher

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American reformer and writer whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) is a classic of 19th century anti-slavery literature. From an activist and influential New England family that included her father Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), sister Catharine Beecher (1800-1878) and brother Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), Harriet moved to Cincinnati in 1833 and married Calvin Ellis Stowe in 1836. While living in Cincinnati, she became active in the anti-slavery movement and, while raising seven children, began writing professionally. Uncle Tom's Cabin, first serialized in 1851, appeared in book form in 1852 and became a bestseller in the United States and England. The story examined the "life among the lowly" and helped frame the slavery issue as a moral one. Stowe wrote more than two dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction, including A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), a fact-filled companion to her famous novel. Her other works include Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), Pearl of Orr's Island (1862) and Pink and White Tyranny (1871).