Children's Stories in American Literature, 1660-1860

by Henrietta Christian Wright

Harriet's first flight from the home nest came in her thirteenth year, when she left Litchfield to attend her sister Catherine's school in Hartford. As her father's salary did not permit any extra expense, Harriet went to live in the family of a friend, who in turn sent his daughter to the parsonage at Litchfield that she might attend the seminary there. This exchange of daughters was a very happy arrangement as far as Harriet was concerned, as she enjoyed the responsibility of being so much her own guardian, and took care of herself and her little room with what she herself calls "awful satisfaction."

Here she began the study of Latin, which fascinated her, the Latin poetry making such an impression on her mind that it became her dream to be a poet. Pages and pages of manuscript were now written in the preparation of a great drama called "Cleon," the scene of which was laid in the time of the Emperor Nero. Every moment that could be spared from actual duties was given to this play, which might have grown to volumes had not the young author been suddenly brought up sharply by her sister, who advised her to stop writing poetry and discipline her mind. Whereupon Harriet plunged into a course of Butler's Analogy and other heavy reading, forgot all about the drama, and was so wrought upon by Baxter's Saint's Rest that she longed for nothing but to die and be in heaven.

The next years of Harriet's life were spent almost entirely at the Hartford school, where she was successively pupil and teacher until her father removed to Cincinnati, whither she accompanied him with the intention of helping her sister to found a college for women. And, although all undreamed of, it was in this place that she was first to feel the inspiration of the work that made her famous. During a short visit across the Ohio River into Kentucky, she saw for the first time a large plantation and something of the life of the negro slaves. Though apparently noticing little of what was before her eyes, she was really absorbing everything with all the keenness of a first impression. The mansion of the planter and the humble cot of the negro, the funny pranks and songs of the slaves, and the pathos that touched their lives, all appealed to her so strongly that, years afterward, she was able to reproduce with utmost faithfulness each picturesque detail of plantation life.

In her twenty-fifth year Harriet was married to Professor Stowe, of Lane Seminary. She had for some time been a contributor to various periodicals, and continued her literary work after her marriage, producing only short sketches for various papers, an elementary geography, and a collection of sketches in book form under the title, The Mayflower. These efforts had been well received by publishers, and friends prophesied a satisfactory career, but it was many years afterward before the author gave herself to the literary life with the earnestness and devotion which so characterized her nature.

Some of her experiences in this Western home, where living was so primitive, were very funny, and some were very trying; but through them all Mrs. Stowe kept a clear head and brave heart. Sometimes she would be left without warning with the entire care of her house and children; often her literary work was done at the sick-bed of a child; and more than once a promised story was written in the intervals of baking, cooking, and the superintendence of other household matters; one of her stories at this time was finished at the kitchen table, while every other sentence was addressed to the ignorant maid, who stood stupidly awaiting instructions about the making of brown bread.

After seventeen years' experience in the Western colleges, Professor Stowe accepted a professorship at Bowdoin, and the family removed to Brunswick, Me. Here her stories and sketches, some humorous, some pathetic, still continued to add to the household's income, and many a comfort that would have been otherwise unknown was purchased with the money thus obtained.

Mrs. Stowe's first important book took the form of an appeal for the freedom of the slaves of the South. One day, while attending communion service in the college chapel, she saw, as in a mental picture, the death-scene of Uncle Tom, afterward described in her celebrated book. Returning home, she wrote out the first draft of that immortal chapter, and calling her children around her read it to them. The two eldest wept at the sad story, which from this beginning grew into the book which made its author famous over the civilized world. In Uncle Tom's Cabin it was Mrs. Stowe's aim to present the every-day life of the Southern plantation. She chose for her hero one of those typical negro characters whose faithfulness and loyalty would so well illustrate the fidelity of his race, while his sad story would make an appeal for the freedom of his people.

Into this story she wove descriptions of Southern life, delineations of negro character, and so many incidents, pathetic and humorous, that it seemed to present when finished a life-like picture of plantation life. The pathetic figure of Uncle Tom, the sweet grace of Eva, the delightful Topsy, and the grim Yankee spinster show alike the sympathetic heart and mind of the author, who linked them so closely together in the invisible bonds of love. The beautiful tribute that St. Clair pays to his mother's influence in one of the striking passages of the book, was but a memory of Mrs. Stowe's own mother, who died when her daughter was four years old. No one could read this pathetic tale without being touched by the sorrows beneath which the negro race had bowed for generations, and through which he still kept a loyal love for his white master, a pride in the family of which he counted himself a member, and that pathetic patience which had been the birthright of his people.

The book Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, ran first as a serial, and came out in book form in 1852. Into it the author had thrown all the seriousness of her nature, and it met with overwhelming success. It was translated into twenty different languages, and Uncle Tom and Eva passed, like the shadow and sunlight of their native land, hand in hand into the homes, great and humble, of widely scattered nations.