The impact created in 1852 by the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin of Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) made her the most widely known American woman writer of the 19th century.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's personality and her work are mint products of her culture. They represent a special combination of rigid Calvinist discipline (fight against it though she tried), sentimental weakness for the romanticism of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and a crusading sense of social and political responsibility.

"Hattie" Beecher was born in Litchfield, Conn., on June 14, 1811, into a family of powerful and very demanding individuals. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was a fiery, evangelical Calvinist who drove his six sons and two daughters along the straight and narrow path of devotion to God, to duty, and to himself. Her mother, Roxana Foote Beecher, died when she was 4, leaving a legacy of quiet gentleness and a brother--the Beecher children's...