American Literature / Unit 9 AML 0815 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Harriet Beecher Stowe and *Uncle Tom's Cabin*
Captions available
The idea
Stowe's novel appeared serially and then as a book in eighteen fifty-two, and it outsold everything else of its generation. It was written in answer to the Fugitive Slave Act, and it argues by making readers feel the separation of families rather than by reasoning about property law.
In practice
An argument built out of feeling.
Where people slip
Written against a specific law.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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