Picturing Uncle Tom with Little Eva-Reproduction as Legacy

Uncle Tom was 150 years old in 2002. From coast to coast, the sesquicentennial publishing anniversary of Uncle Tom's Cabin became an occasion to reassess what impact Harriet Beecher Stowe's popular novel has had on American arts and attitudes. In California, the Huntington Library was the site of a two-day conference, with noted speakers exploring "the broad social legacy" of the 1852 book. An exhibition at the New York Historical Society, "Reading Uncle Tom's Image: The 150-Year Legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Character Reconsidered," featured book engravings along with work by contemporary visual artists. Writing for Black Issues in Higher Education, Kendra Hamilton applauded scholars for reflecting on the "legacy of the groundbreaking novel" (22), its author, and especially on the central character, Uncle Tom. Without a doubt, Tom and his story are worthy of study, but perhaps "legacy" may not be the right framework within which to analyze these phenomena. Historians frequently speak in terms of "legacy," what Webster's II defines as "something handed down from an ancestor or from the past." The phrase "legacy of slavery" is invoked to explain social situations, such as the persistence of African American poverty or a disparity in achievement test scores between the South and the rest of the nation. These result, explain sociologists, from slavery's legacy. The notion is alarming, as if poverty and low scholastic marks are inevitable. As legacy, the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin becomes a cyclical narrative frozen in time, with Tom reliving a relationship from generation to generation wherein the African man is slave and the European his master. Spawned as sentimental fiction, Uncle Tom's story was never solely a literary legacy. From the outset, there were pictures. One of the most beloved and one of the most maligned characters in all of America's democratic arts, Uncle Tom is an enduring icon because his image has been drawn, painted, inscribed, acted out, photographed, and continually refitted to social, political, economic strategies of the (powerful? white? male?) people, for (seeking to affect the thinking of) the (less powerful, white) people. This article is not about a fictional character from a written text, but the Uncle Tom of visual culture. Who Was Uncle Tom? Few today have actually read Stowe's sentimental bestseller to encounter its eponymous hero firsthand. Yet his name has long been evoked with tacit expectations. During the civil rights movement, to be called "Uncle Tom" was perhaps the most severe insult one could receive from a fellow African American, derogatory shorthand for a fawning sycophant, "yassuh-ing" the (white) man at the expense of his own dignity. Looking askance back to Tuskegee Institute educator Booker T. Washington and his seeming readiness to accommodate turn-of-the-century white southerners, students of the 1960s era of Black Power/Black Pride asked, "Was he a Tom?" In the 1980s when the African American mayor of Los Angeles was viewed by some as too chummy with "the man" and his corporate interests, he was called "Uncle Tom" Bradley. Amidst allegations of police sexual misconduct in the Tawanna Brawley incident some years back, a New York minister came to prominence as the spokesperson for the young woman. He was dubbed "Uncle Sharp-Tom." Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas becomes "Uncle Thomas" if his opinion echoes fellow justice Antonin Scalia. The sobriquet reverberates. Obsequious servant, accommodating politician, opportunist-these were not Stowe's character. For antebellum readers, Tom "was a noble character, a self-sacrificing father. "Sold down the river," he willingly joined the slave coffle to save his family and community from a similar fate. Captive Tom was a heroic figure, a devout Christian who would not be swayed from his faith even at the peril of bodily harm and eventual death. He was a man of pious beliefs, which he ultimately died upholding. …