Page from manuscript draft of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or Life Among the Lowly

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, an account of the brutality of slavery, was first published serially in the abolitionist newspaper The National Era. This manuscript page is from the first draft of the first chapter. Although she did not believe in racial equality, Stowe abhorred slavery and believed that Christian compassion would bring slaveholders to see the inhumanity of their so-called “peculiar institution.” Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in book form in March 1852, quickly became the bestselling novel of the 19th century and garnered Northern support for the abolitionist movement in the years leading up to the Civil War.