Harriet Beecher Stowe is best known for her 1851 book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which highlighted the humanity of enslaved people and the evils of slavery. Because of this book, it is reported that President Abraham Lincoln said to Stowe, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” While this account has come into question, it emphasizes the impact this one book had on those who read it before and during the Civil War and on American history more broadly. But who was this woman, and why should students seek to emulate her as they learn the value of living a life serving others?

Mrs. Stowe was born in June 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut, to a famed Congregationalist minister, Lyman Beecher, and Roxana Foote Beecher. Although one of seven children, she is hardly the only prominent, service-hearted one of her siblings. Her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, was a famous preacher and reformer, and her elder sister and the most pronounced influence in her young life, Catharine Beecher, was a teacher and writer who promoted equal access to education for women and advocated for their roles as teachers and mothers. Stowe eventually attended Catharine’s Harford Female Seminary, where she got an education rivaling men’s institutions. Here, her talent for writing became evident, and she continued to hone this skill throughout the remainder of her life. Following her sister’s footsteps, she went into a service-oriented job upon graduation, teaching at the seminary for a number of years.  

When her father accepted the president’s position at a Seminary in Ohio in the 1830s, Stowe went with him. Here began her journey, eventually leading her to join the abolitionist cause. She met some great minds and reformers of the day, including prominent abolitionists, who further inspired her already inherent value of all human life.  In Ohio, she met and married Calvin Stowe, a professor at the same seminary where her father worked. He encouraged his wife to pursue her writing, and with his blessing, she became a prolific author of her time, writing articles for magazines and approximately 30 nonfiction books and novels. During all this writing, she also had seven children, who were the pride of her life. 

In 1849, Mrs. Stowe had a terrible turning point in her life when her son died of cholera. Of this tragedy, she would later say that the loss of her child inspired empathy for enslaved mothers who had their children ripped away from them and sold into slavery. A year later, the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which legally compelled Northerners to return runaway slaves, infuriated Stowe and propelled her to write her most famous work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Spurred to courage and conviction by her Christian faith, she saw this story as a call to arms for Northerners to defy the Fugitive Slave Act. 
 
Released in March of 1852, the book was an immediate hit. When she faced criticism and accusations that the accounts of slavery were exaggerated or false, Mrs. Stowe published Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which provided primary source documents that included narratives of former slaves, such as Frederick Douglass and Josiah Henderson, to back up her depictions. These books brought her much fame, which she used to petition for the end of slavery. She toured the world to promote her book and tell of the evil realities of slavery, all the while donating some of her profits to the antislavery cause.

Because of her courage to write a controversial and counter-cultural story, others felt that they, too, could speak out and erode the blood-stained veneer that had been over the institution of slavery for so long. While Uncle Tom’s Cabin may not have literally started the Civil War, it opened people’s eyes and allowed for much-needed conversation about something so opposite to the principles of America's founding. Stowe’s life of service to others she did not know but had immense sympathy and respect for is one to learn from and admire. We can all use a little bit of the conviction and fortitude of Mrs. Stowe, and hopefully, by learning more about her and reading her famous book, we can imbibe her character and help others with a cheerful heart.