Harriet Beecher Stowe1811 - 1896
Lyman Beecher1775 - 1863
and Henry Ward Beecher1813 - 1887
Sometime after 1860, Lyman Beecher left Boston to live in Brooklyn with his son, Henry Ward Beecher, popular pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church. Though the younger Beecher's ministry of love and redemption contrasted strongly with his father's strict Calvinist philosophy, both he and his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, carried on their father's opposition to slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, rendered her tragic subject in a style that combined heartfelt conviction with endless documentary detail, and the book made her the best-known author of her generation. This image was made around 1861, when Henry Ward Beecher, as editor of the national magazine The Independent, began to call for ever more radical action from Lincoln to end slavery and bring the war to a close. Brady's photograph of two famous siblings and their renowned father record a distinguished American family and three important intellectual leaders.

Mathew Brady Studio Albumen silver print (carte de visite), circa 1861
8.5 x 5.3 cm (3 5/16 x 2 1/16 inches)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.