Books by Professor Harriet Beecher Stowe

Palmetto Leaves is a memoir and travel guide written by Harriet Beecher Stowe about her winters in the town of Mandarin, Florida, published in 1873. Already famous for having written Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Stowe came to Florida after the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865). She purchased a plantation near Jacksonville as a place for her son to recover from the injuries he had received as a Union soldier and to make a new start in life. After visiting him, she became so enamored with the region she purchased a cottage and orange grove for herself and wintered there until 1884, even though the plantation failed within its first year. Parts of Palmetto Leaves appeared in a newspaper published by Stowe's brother, as a series of letters and essays about life in northeast Florida. Scion of New England clergy, Stowe keenly felt a sense of Christian responsibility that was expressed in her letters. She considered it her duty to help improve the lives of newly emancipated blacks and detailed her efforts to establish a school and church in Mandarin toward these ends. Parts of the book relate the lives of local African-Americans and the customs of their society. Stowe described the charm of the region and its generally moderate climate but warned readers of "excessive" heat in the summer months and occasional cold snaps in winter. Her audience comprises relatives, friends, and strangers in New England who ask her advice about whether or not to move to Florida, which at the time was still mostly wilderness. Although it is a minor work in Stowe's oeuvre, Palmetto Leaves was one of the first travel guides written about Florida and stimulated Florida's first boom of tourism and residential development in the 1880s...By the time Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) moved to Florida in 1867, she was already internationally famous for authoring Uncle Tom's Cabin, published as a serial between 1851 and 1852. The novel expounded upon her abolitionist views and was extraordinarily influential in condemning slavery in the United States. Stowe's opposition to slavery sprang from a moral passion based on her Christian faith. She had grown up the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Lyman Beecher; seven of her brothers became ministers in Calvinist or Congregational denominations, and she married a minister.In 1860, Stowe's son Frederick "Fred" William Stowe enlisted in the First Massachusetts Infantry Regiment when Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers in anticipation of the Civil War. Much beloved, yet troubled, Fred Stowe had developed a problem with alcohol as early as sixteen. He took to army life, however, and was promoted to lieutenant. After receiving a head wound at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, he endured severe headaches and was forced to resign his commissionHis alcoholism worsened, and he may have compounded it with a liberal use of opiates and narcotics, which were widely available.In 1866, Fred encountered two young farmers in Connecticut who had spent time on duty as Union soldiers in Florida during the war. He learned from them that land there was plentiful and cheap, and many recently emancipated blacks were available at low wages to work it. When he shared this information with his mother, Stowe and her husband Calvin Ellis Stowe considered it a prime opportunity to hasten their son's rehabilitation.....

The Minister's Wooing is a historical novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, first published in 1859. Set in 18th-century New England, the novel explores New England history, highlights the issue of slavery, and critiques the Calvinist theology in which Stowe was raised.Due to similarities in setting, comparisons are often drawn between this work and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850). However, in contrast to Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter, The Minister's Wooing is a "sentimental romance"; its central plot revolves around courtship and marriage. Moreover, Stowe's exploration of the regional history of New England deals primarily with the domestic sphere, the New England response to slavery, and the psychological impact of the Calvinist doctrines of predestination and disinterested benevolence.With its intense focus upon the history, customs, and mannerisms of New England, The Minister's Wooing is one sense an example of the local color writing that proliferated in late 19th century. However, by highlighting the issue of slavery, this time in the north, The Minister's Wooing also represents a continuation of Stowe's earlier anti-slavery novels.Finally, the work serves as a critique of Calvinism, written from the perspective of an individual deeply familiar with the theological system. Stowe's father was the well-known Calvinist minister Lyman Beecher, and Stowe based many aspects of the novel upon events in the lives of herself and her older sister Catharine's life.Throughout the novel, Stowe portrays the reaction of different personality types to the pressures of Calvinist principles, illustrating in this manner what she perceives as Calvinism's strengths and weaknesses. In particular, responding to the untimely death of her sister's fiancé and the death of two of her own children, Stowe addresses the issue of predestination, the idea that individuals were either saved or damned, and only the elect would go to heaven. Publication History--The Minister's Wooing was first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly from December 1858 to December 1859, and then published in book form first in England by Sampson Low, Son & Co., and then in the US by Derby and Jackson, in order to guarantee British royalties. Genesis of the Novel--In 1857, Harriet Stowe's son Henry drowned in the Connecticut River. Like the sailor James in the novel, he was unregenerate at the time of his death. Stowe had first begun to reassess the Calvinist view of salvation after watching her sister Catherine wrestle with the similar loss of an unregenerate fiancé in 1822, and her own son's death spurred further reflection. The grief and doubt experienced by both Harriet and her sister served as the genesis of the novel, and their experience finds its fullest expression in the character of Mrs. Marvyn.Some readers, including Stowe's own grandson Lyman Beecher Stowe, proclaimed the book to be an assault on Calvinism. Stowe did indeed question the establishment in which she had been raised, but it is evident from her journals that she was not seeking to launch a full attack. Indeed, she expressed a profound respect and admiration for both Calvinist theology and the individuals who grappled with its doctrines.Her stated intent was instead to point out certain flaws and to spread tolerance... Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe ( June 14, 1811 - July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. She wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stands on social issues of the day.

When proslavery critics of Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851) charged that she did not describe slavery accurately, she published this fact-filled 1853 book demonstrating that her novel was true to life. This is a facsimile of an 1853 edition with the small text enlarged to make it more easily read. It is an excellent source of information about mid-nineteenth century American slavery.

Gentle Reader, It is customary to omit prefaces. I beg you to make an exception in my particular case; I have something I really want to say. I have an object in this book, more than the mere telling of a story, and you can always judge of a book better if you compare it with the author's object. My object is to interpret to the world the New England life and character in that particular time of its history which may be called the seminal period. I would endeavor to show you New England in its seed-bed, before the hot suns of modern progress had developed its sprouting germs into the great trees of today.- Harriet Beecher Stowe in the character of Horace Holyoke