Literary protest has a long history as a purpose-driven style. Protest writers expose injustice in hopes that readers are moved to take action. That was Stowe’s intention for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and she did her research. The home she shared with her husband in Cincinnati became a station on the Underground Railroad. Offering shelter and rest to people fleeing slavery, Stowe was able to talk with them about their experiences in the South. She would also cross the state line into Kentucky and attend slave auctions. To avoid written notes that could implicate Stowe, her family, and the people she was trying to help, Stowe memorized the first-hand accounts of the deprivations and violence that maintained chattel slavery in America.

Then, the U.S. Congress passed the 1850 Runaway Slave Act, which required even northerners to report anyone suspected of being a fugitive slave. Stowe was outraged. To her, it was unacceptable that her government would impose such an immoral law. So, she sat down and wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was originally published as a series of 40 installments in the abolitionist newspaper The National Era. After it was printed as a two-volume book – on this day – Uncle Tom’s Cabin became America’s best-selling book of the 19th-Century, after the Bible.

The novel was repeatedly challenged and called a false description of slavery. To prove the book’s contents were accurate, Stowe compiled documentation from newspapers, court cases, and eyewitness accounts. Stowe may have received one of the greatest compliments any protest writer could want. There is an apocryphal but often-told story that when President Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe during the Civil War, he said to her, “So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!” Years later, Stowe’s son wrote that his mother thought Lincoln was funny. And tall.

First Edition, First Issue of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with a first edition of A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin; With a signed Card and Cart-de-visite The signed card reads "Truly Yours H B Stowe" Image source: Raptis Rare Books

On this day in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin' was published. It is still one of the most successful examples of literary protest.

#BookSky #Slavery #Abolition #Emancipation #RunawaySlaveAct #History #OTD

The Compromise of 1850 made California a state – importantly, a free state. It also took a third of what had been Texas and designated that land as the new territories of New Mexico and Utah. In exchange for that land, the federal government relieved Texas of debts totalling $10 million. The agreement also ended the trading of slaves in Washington D.C. And it garnered votes to pass an even stricter version of the Runaway Slave Act – which Black Americans and abolitionists saw as state-sponsored terrorism aimed specifically at their communities. At the time, the compromise was seen as a way to prevent the southern slave states from seceding. In fact, it only delayed secession by 10 years.

A 19th Century colored engraving of U.S. Senator Henry Clay, in a speech before the Senate, outlining the principal features of what would become the Compromise of 1850, colored engraving. Image source: Britannica

It is the 175 anniversary of the Compromise of 1850.
The agreements made in Congress were big steps toward the modern age and demonstrated the pervasive depths of systemic racism in the U.S.
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