Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe was born June 14, 1811, Litchfield, Connecticut. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was an abolitionist Calvinist preacher from Boston. Her mother, Roxana Foote Beecher, was the sister of a the renowned minister, Henry Ward Beecher. In 1832, her family moved to Cincinnati. There she learned of the south and slavery. When she saw the slavery she did not like it. She wished there was a way of stopping it.

Later she married Calvin Ellis Stowe. They then moved to Brunswick, Maine. They had seven children together. Four of the seven died before she did. In that time children usually died because of cholera. She was very depressed. She imagined this is how slave mother would feel if their child would have been sold off to another person.

Harriet Beecher Stowe when she was younger

During the Civil War she found out that her servant was actually a run-away slave. She and her husband brought their servant to the next underground railroad station. One of her friends told her how he had helped a runaway slave and her baby across a frozen river. It inspired her to help with the underground railroad. She would put a candle in her window.

She wrote a book called "Uncle Tom's Cabin". She would ask the runaway slaves that she helped, what it was like on the plantation they ran away from. She also asked what they endured to get as far as they are now. When she published the book, it became very popular in the north. It made people in the north look differently at slavery. Soon they got angry,that slavery were being treated so badly.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's home in Connecticut

Then the Civil War started. Harriet was shocked that she kind of started the war with her book. The war lasted from 1861 to 1865. During the war, Abe Lincoln met Harriet and said to her, "so you're the little woman who started this great war".