​An Uncle Tom’s Cabin Seminar

Written in Brunswick, Maine in 1851-52, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the runaway bestseller of its century, prompting an exponential increase in anti-slavery sentiment in the North, as well as blazing outrage in the South. Many historians believe the national furor over the novel was a major factor in precipitating the Civil War. Stowe’s messages surrounding race, religion, gender, nationalism, and colonization are still controversial today. Through reading, discussion, lectures, and field trips to the Stowe House, First Parish Church, and Special Collections at Bowdoin College, we’ll dig into the complicated legacy of the novel that helped bring an end to American slavery and release four million people from bondage.

Field trips are on Tuesday, February 25th and Tuesday, March 25th.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Third Norton Critical Edition, ISBN ‎978-0393283785

Susan F. Beegel holds a PhD in English from Yale and is a retired editor of The Hemingway Review. She is a scholar of American literature and history. Harriet Beecher Stowe is a special research interest for Beegel, whose collection of Uncle Tom’s Cabin paper ephemera resides in the Bowdoin College Library.