By discussing current events and social issues, Harriet learned how to argue persuasively. In , Harriet became first a student and then a teacher at Hartford Female Seminary, founded by sister Catharine. There, she furthered her writing talents, spending many hours composing essays. Lyman was appointed President of Lane Theological Seminary.
In the summer of , Stowe experienced for the first time the sorrow of many 19th century parents when her month-old son, Samuel Charles Stowe, died of cholera. The Stowe family moved and lived in Brunswick until The Beechers and the Stowes knew that racial equality required more than legislation; it also required education.
Newly expanded railroads made shipping citrus fruits north a potentially lucrative business. Stowe purchased an orange grove which she hoped her son Frederick would manage. Harriet Beecher Stowe loved Florida, comparing its soft climate to Italy, and she published Palmetto Leaves , describing the beauties and advantages of the state. When it first appeared in installments in the abolitionist newspaper The National Era between June 5, and April 1, , it met with hostility by slavery proponents.
Stowe expected that she would write the story in three or four installments, but she eventually wrote more than It was a best seller in the United States, Britain, and Europe and was translated into over 60 languages. The book received both high praise and harsh criticism and propelled Stowe and the issue of slavery into the international spotlight. Slavery proponents argued that the novel was nothing more than abolitionist propaganda. In the South, and in the North too, people protested that the depiction of slavery had been melodramatically twisted.
Southerners particularly promoted the idea that the institution of slavery was benevolent and benign. Thomas, the editor of a German newspaper in Philadelphia, began to print excerpts from the book without paying the required royalties. Stowe died in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 1, She was one of 13 children born to religious leader Lyman Beecher and his wife, Roxanna Foote Beecher, who died when Harriet was a child.
Harriet enrolled in a school run by Catharine, following the traditional course of classical learning usually reserved for young men. At the age of 21, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where her father had become the head of the Lane Theological Seminary.
Lyman Beecher took a strong abolitionist stance following the pro-slavery Cincinnati Riots of His attitude reinforced the abolitionist beliefs of his children, including Stowe. Stowe found like-minded friends in a local literary association called the Semi-Colon Club.
Here, she formed a friendship with fellow member and seminary teacher Calvin Ellis Stowe. They were married on January 6, , and eventually moved to a cottage near in Brunswick, Maine, close to Bowdoin College.
Along with their interest in literature, Harriet and Calvin Stowe shared a strong belief in abolition. In , Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, prompting distress and distress in abolitionist and free Black communities of the North. Instead, Calvin or one of her brothers spoke for her. Its characters and their daily experiences made people uncomfortable as they realized enslaved people had families and hopes and dreams like everyone else, yet were considered chattel and exposed to terrible living conditions and violence.
It also sparked outrage. In the North, the book stoked anti-slavery views. In some parts of the South, the book was illegal. As it gained popularity, divisions between the North and South became further entrenched. By the mids, the Republican Party had formed to help prevent slavery from spreading. In , Calvin retired and moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut—their neighbor was Mark Twain —but the Stowes spent their winters in Mandarin, Florida.
Stowe and her son Frederick established a plantation there and hired formerly enslaved people to work it. In , she wrote Palmetto Leaves , a memoir promoting Florida life. Controversy and heartache found Stowe again in her later years. In , her article in The Atlantic accused English nobleman Lord Byron of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister that produced a child. The scandal diminished her popularity with the British people. But no scandal ever reduced the massive impact her writings had on slavery and the literary world.
Stowe died on July 2, , at her Connecticut home, surrounded by her family. Catharine Esther Beecher. Harriet B. Ohio History Central. Harriet Beecher Stowe House. National Park Service.
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