Uncle Tom's Cabin-Date and Context

Like so many other novels of the time, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published as a serial novel. It was released over the years 1851 and 1852 in installments. The first single volume publication was done in 1852 and sold 3,000 copies on its first day in print. The book is reported to have sold 50,000 copies in the first 8 weeks and within a year, sales were around 300,000 copies. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was translated into 37 different languages and made Stowe a celebrity all around the world.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote several other novels after Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but none were quite as popular as this one seminal work. Upon meeting Stowe, Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said, “So this is the little lady who started this big war!” While the Civil War had many causes, Stowe’s writing had called a great amount of attention to what many in the North perceived as the great injustice of humanity, slavery.
It is no small matter to consider the context within which Stowe wrote this major work of American literature. The great Compromise of 1850 was the last major effort at conciliation between the two major sections of the country, the slaveholding South and the abolitionist North. While it is not fair to oversimplify the regions this way, it was consistent with the thought of the day in which Stowe wrote.
A major portion of the Compromise of 1850 was the Fugitive Slave Act. Passed to calm southern fears of northern plans to eradicate slavery from the South as well, the Fugitive Slave Act made it illegal for anyone to give assistance to a runaway slave and required that they be returned to their owners upon apprehension by any northerner.
Stowe’s own experiences in Cincinnati from 1832-1836 must have played a major role in her consideration of the institution of slavery. There she witnessed race riots and met people involved in the Underground Railroad. It must be remembered that Stowe only visited Kentucky once in her life. Her direct knowledge of the condition of slaves and the temperament of slave owners would have been minimal, at best.