This Novel looks to attack the law of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that makes it illegal for anyone in the U.S. to help any runaway slaves. The novel was based off of true life stories of African American Slaves. It energized anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. The novel talks about the cruel, horrible, and terrifying lives of Slaves, and the separation of slave families through auctions and slave owners breaking families apart to sell. Harriet Beecher Stowe lost a child in infancy, an experience that she said made her empathize with the losses suffered by slave mothers whose children were sold.
“So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”
This was Abraham Lincoln’s reported greeting to HARRIET BEECHER STOWE when he met her ten years after her book UNCLE TOM’S CABIN was published. This quote also showed that Women had a voice in the US even before they had the right to vote.