# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Stowe, Harriet Beecher

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STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER.
Perhaps in the whole of the annals of female authorship there is nothing so extraordinary as the success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," A work which, we believe, has been sold by millions, and translated into nearly all the European languages. Previous to its appearance, in 1852, its author, although known in America as a writer of tales and sketches suitable for magazines, had not achieved there a high literary reputation, and in this country was almost unknown as a writer. It is not necessary for us here to enter at all deeply into the causes which led to such an instant and amazing popularity for this tale of "Life Among the Lowly," a tale which has placed Mrs. Stowe in the first rank of modern fictionists, and given such an impetus to the anti-slavery movement as it never before received from a single hand at a single effort. What other friends of the negro have done by years of patient labour, and earnest devotion of energies and talents, this lady effected at once. Both hemispheres thrilled with horror and indignation at the wrongs and sufferings of those held in the thraldom of an iniquitous system. But it is to the author of this book, wherein we know not which most to admire, its bold reprobation of wrong-doing, its exhibition of Christian fortitude, and love, and charity under injury and suffering, its graphic power of description, its exquisite pathos, or irresistible drollery, or masterly exhibition of human character, especially that of the negro,—to her whose name has become a household word in America and England, and in many other countries, that our attention must be for the present turned.
The name of her father was Lyman Beecher, a New Englander by birth, who first practised his father's craft, that of a blacksmith, and then, by dint of perseverance, aided, no doubt, by natural talent, went through a course of collegiate studies at Yale, in Newhaven, and finally became Dr. Beecher, one of the first pulpit orators of America, and Principal of a Theological Seminary instituted by the Presbyterian body at Lane, near Cincinnati. Harriet was his second daughter, always remarkable for her great depth of character; she was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, about the year 1812, and enjoyed the best educational advantages of Boston, that Athens of the West. At an early age she began to assist her elder sister Catharine in the management of a flourishing female school which she had herself established at Litchfield; and this she continued to do when, the family removing to Cincinnati, another institution of the kind was there opened. This sister, Catharine Esther Beecher, was altogether a remarkable woman, as is shown by the notice of her given in a former part of this volume. Harriet was married when about twenty-one years old to the Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, professor of biblical literature in the seminary of which her father was president, and for seventeen years after this event her life seems to have flowed on with great evenness and serenity; she became the mother of a numerous offspring, of whom five are now living. She was a most exemplary mother, educating her children with great care, and yet finding time occasionally to indulge her taste for literary composition; her short tales and sketches, which found their way into the periodicals, ​were all remarkable chiefly for their high moral aim and tendency.
She, as well as her husband and father, entered warmly into the cause of negro emancipation, and availed themselves of every opportunity to assist, succour, and instruct the coloured people. The introduction of anti-slavery reports and other pamphlets into the college, and their ready acceptation by the students, stirred up the slave-holding interest against the Principal and Professor Stowe, and ultimately led to their withdrawal from the establishment, which was for a time deserted by its pupils, who rather preferred to give up its advantages than their notions of universal freedom. Professor Stowe accepted the professorship of biblical literature in the Theological Seminary of Andover, in Massachusetts, in 1850, and in the same year his wife, having thoroughly acquainted herself with the sad catalogue of crimes and miseries included in the American slavery system, published in succeeding numbers of "The Washington National Era" that tale of "Life Among the Lowly" which has so firmly established her fame as a powerful writer, and a Christian woman of deep and wide sympathies, and a well-cultivated understanding. Edition after edition of this work was called for in America, and our readers need not be told how it was received in England. Some of her pictures of negro wrongs and sufferings having been impugned as exaggerated and highly coloured, Mrs. Stowe produced in 1852 her "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which she proves by incontestible evidence that this is not the case, but, on the contrary, that the real is more harrowing and soul-sickening than the fictitious. At the beginning of 1853 Mrs. Stowe visited England, in accordance with numerous pressing invitations, and received the most enthusiastic welcome from all ranks of society. Her favourable impressions of this visit, and of a continental tour which followed it, are recorded in "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," published in 1854. Her latest work, "Dred," the name of a runaway negro, came out in 1856. In it we have further developments of American life in relation to slavery. As a story, it is not equal to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and has disappointed many; but it has very powerful scenes and admirable delineations 'of character.