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Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe
Artist
Unidentified Artist
Sitter
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, 14 Jun 1811 - 1 Jul 1896
Date
c. 1865
Type
Photograph
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
Image/Sheet: 8.5 x 5.5 cm (3 3/8 x 2 3/16")
Mount: 10 x 6.3 cm (3 15/16 x 2 1/2")
Topic
Interior
Home Furnishings\Furniture\Seating\Chair
Printed Material\Book
Costume\Outerwear\Shawl
Photographic format\Carte-de-visite
Interior\Studio\Photography
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe: Female
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe: Literature\Writer\Novelist
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Abolitionist
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.2006.57
Exhibition Label
Born Litchfield, Connecticut
In 1851, when Harriet Beecher Stowe began writing a story depicting the cruelties of Southern slavery, she did not expect her text to be very long, and her hopes for having any impact on shaping antislavery opinion were modest. But what began as a short story turned into the best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), a work that became the most widely read antislavery tract of the pre–Civil War era. While the book galvanized the North’s growing antipathy for slavery, Southerners raged at the alleged distortion of their world, and there is little doubt that the publication played a significant part in widening the breach between the two regions.
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Location
Currently not on view