There have been a select few writers who could be said to have changed a nation’s beliefs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was a writer who changed America. This simple statement conveys much meaning. This is because she changed the course of American politics and thrust slavery further onstage, further into the limelight. Mrs. Stowe is sometimes even credited with having sparked the flame that would later become the raging conflagration of the American Civil War. Her writings were passionate, intent, and moving, and yet written for the average reader. Her upbringing, family, education, and married life bled into her work and made it into the nation-shaking novel we know today. Harriet Beecher Stowe, born Harriet Elisabeth Beecher to Reverend Lyman and Roxanna Foote Beecher in Litchfield, Connecticut, was shaped by her upbringing. Her mother and father naturally had a very large role in this influence. Though her mother died when she was only five, Harriet paid homage to her mother’s talents. Her mother painted and drew, and Harriet honored her mother by practicing those arts and following in her footsteps. Though her mother influenced her turn toward the liberal arts, it …show more content…
She met her readers on even ground and conveyed both subtly and powerfully the message contained in her magnum opus, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her whole life led to the writing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin: her upbringing in a free state turned her toward the abolitionist cause; Lyman, Harriet’s father, encouraged Harriet to shape her world; her education honed her talents as a writer; and her life and experiences as a married woman in Cincinnati, so close to a slave state, gave her the direction to make Harriet the celebrity activist, the “ . . . little woman who started [the] great