J.M. NORTHUP

Bringing Light To The Dark Horrors Of Inhumanity

Harriet Beecher Stowe lived from 1811 until 1896. This was an era when women were encouraged to remain silent – they were discouraged from having a public voice and could not vote nor hold public office. Imagine a female writer of this time not only publishing controversial work (because she believed her words mattered), but causing real change because of her novels. That should be the reason writers opt to publish their works!

Slavery has been a staple of war since the beginning of time, but the inhumanity of what happened to some groups and races throughout history are appalling – from the attempted genocide of the Native Americans, to the Holocaust, to the oppression of People of Color in America – cruelty in all forms is unacceptable. In the most horrific instances, they all had one thing in common – they dehumanized the victims. One of the greatest achievements of Harriet Beecher Stowe and her bestselling classic, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is that it confronted everyone with the truth about slavery. She brought compassion back into the equation.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin forced people to face the hellacious conditions of slavery and how it dehumanized our nation. It incited change so fiercely that it’s credited as being one of the causes for the American Civil War. For that, Harriet is a writer to be remembered.