53. Harriet Beecher Stowe

    Sometimes a book can help change history. One book that certainly did was Uncle Tom 's Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was a book that spoke out against slavery.

    At the time Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her novel, there were over 3.5 million slaves in the United States. Slaves were usually in the cotton-growing states of the South. The Northern states had abolished, or gotten rid of, slavery. Yet most Northerners were not strongly against slavery. They were willing to let slavery continue in the South.

    Stowe was determined to make people understand that slavery was evil. Each night after putting her six children to bed, she worked on her novel. She told the story of characters like Tom, a courageous old slave, Simon Legree, a cruel man who buys Tom, and Eliza, who makes a dangerous escape to freedom.

    Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852. Over 300,000 copies were sold in a year.

    People reacted strongly to the novel In the North, many people were finally convinced that slavery must be ended. In the South, many people were very angry.

    Disagreements between the North and the South grew. By 1861 the two sections of the country were at war. The Civil War, which lasted until 1865, finally brought an end to slavery.

    Of course, the Civil War had many different causes. Yet Uncle Tom 's Cabin surely played a part. Stowe met President Lincoln in 1862. As Lincoln took her hand, he said, "So you're the little woman who started the big war."