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Teaching Uncle Tom's Cabin in the AP U.S. History Course
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by Cora Greer
University of Maine at Machias
Machias, Maine
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| | Uncle Tom's Cabin's Relevance Today
One hundred and fifty years after its publication, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin continues to be the most significant protest novel produced by an American author. Written in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (and the subsequent capture and return to slavery of fugitive slaves in Boston and other northern cities), Stowe's novel brought millions of northerners, heretofore indifferent to the "peculiar institution," into the antislavery fold. For this reason alone, students of American history should become familiar with the novel. Moreover, events and new historical perspectives developed over the past 50 years give Uncle Tom's Cabin importance beyond its role as an antislavery novel -- another reason the book definitely should have a place in the AP U.S. History curriculum.
The central plot of Uncle Tom's Cabin is usually laid out in textbooks, but the current interest goes beyond this basic framework. Uncle Tom's Cabin has, in fact, three plot lines: the first, and most well known, involves Tom, his sale to relieve the financial stresses of the Shelby family, and his eventual martyrdom at the hands of Simon Legree. The second describes the escape of the slave Eliza, her son Harry, and her husband George. The final story focuses on the slave Cassy, Legree's unwilling mistress, who, by preying on Legree's superstition, outsmarts him and escapes.
The Context of Antebellum Slavery
Stowe wrote her novel 10 years before the Civil War, and her attitudes toward both slavery and race were of the period. The United States was a Christian country, and no families were more taken up with the social and religious controversies of the day than the Beechers and Stowes. Harriet was one of 13 children fathered by Lyman Beecher, a prominent clergyman and president of the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati. Deeply committed Christians, the Beechers lived by the idea that a godly life was a life of improving the world through word, action, and faith. They saw religion as fundamental to reform, and all the Beecher siblings were, in one way or another, involved with the reform movements of the antebellum period -- temperance, perfectionism, women's rights, nativism, and abolition.
At the time of Harriet Beecher's marriage to Calvin Stowe, a Biblical scholar and professor of Greek at the Lane Theological Seminary, that institution was in the midst of a debate on how to respond to the activities of militant abolitionists and the violence these activities inspired. A number of the young theology students believed that abolitionists were entitled to free speech. President Lyman Beecher's response to the situation alienated the radicals, who then followed Theodore Weld to William Grandison Finney's abolitionist-friendly Oberlin College. Harriet's antislavery position began here, and evolved over time; it was, however, always based on her Christian beliefs. In the late 1840s, when Stowe was conceiving the novel, the entire country was emerging from the turmoil of the Second Great Awakening. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived through, participated in, and was affected by this religious ferment.
There were few Americans of the period (including most abolitionists) who felt African Americans were equal to their white counterparts. Would there be a future for these people in the United States once they were emancipated? The Haitian revolution had been extremely violent. The British emancipation of slaves in the Caribbean resulted in a large number of freedmen refusing to work, and a subsequent sharp decline in sugar production. Neither of these examples inspired confidence among Americans. Stowe, like Lincoln (at this time), felt that the freed slaves would be best served by establishing them in colonies in Liberia. It is not accidental that all the main African-American characters in the novel choose to go to Africa. Frederick Douglass, responding to the novel's conclusion, remarked to Stowe, "The truth is, dear Madam, we are here, and here we are likely to remain." Over time, Stowe, like Lincoln, accepted the reality of ex-slaves becoming an integral part of the American population.
Stowe also accepted the view that there was validity to the racial caste system of the time. George, Eliza, Harry, Cassy, and Emmeline are described as either mulatto or quadroon; all are well-spoken and refined in their comportment. Tom, Chloe, and Topsy are described as "pure" Negro, and speak in dialect. These characters, though models of Christian virtue, are seen to be of a lower social caste. Chapter 20, which introduces Topsy, provides readers with an excellent example of this racial stereotyping, as do illustrations from the various editions.
Unlike others, Stowe saw slavery as more than a southern problem, and understood that northerners were complicit in its survival. The most odious character, Simon Legree, is a northerner. Mrs. Shelby and her son are both southerners and Christians who eventually see the moral wrongness of slavery. This national responsibility for the institution is reemphasized in chapter 45, "Concluding Remarks."
Twentieth-Century Readings
Throughout the book Tom is described by Stowe as a devout Christian, and a man others respect -- a natural leader of men. Thus, his decision to react passively to Legree's cruelties rather than organize a revolt, or escape like Cassy and Eliza, was troubling to some readers, especially those in the African-American community. As early as the 1920s the name "Uncle Tom" referred to blacks who were subservient to whites. By the 1960s, Uncle Tom's Cabin and its main protagonist were seen by many -- especially by radicals in the Civil Rights movement -- in a negative light. Of course, in Stowe's mind, the refusal of Tom (who is frequently seen as a Christ figure) to break under Legree's savagery is a sign of strength -- a victory for his religious and moral convictions, as well as the vehicle of his spiritual salvation. This position is still held by those who see Tom as a nonviolent hero in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Not surprisingly, as she is the most successful female author in American history, Stowe has attracted the attention of feminists and those focused on women's history. To these people the strongest and most interesting characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin are Eliza and Cassy -- two strong women who escape from slavery and go on to lead lives in freedom. It is Eliza, not her husband George, who risks her life to save their son Harry from bondage. Cassy is an even stronger figure; it is she who suggests both escape and the possibility of revolt to Tom, and who, in the end, engineers her own escape (as well as that of the young slave Emmeline who is preyed on by Legree) and terrorizes Legree to insanity. With the exception of Tom and George (who does manage his own escape) the good men in Uncle Tom's Cabin, such as Shelby and St. Clare, are weak, and lack the strong moral convictions that breed action.
Stowe's radical Christian vision based on matriarchal values is, however, a vision based on necessity. Eliza and Cassy, especially the latter, are characters who cannot, due to bondage, fit into the cult of domesticity championed by Stowe's sister Catharine (and heretofore not disputed by Harriet). Yet Stowe does not denigrate women's work. One of the best examples of domestic harmony in the Catharine Beecher tradition can be found in chapter 4, "An Evening in Uncle Tom's Cabin," and, once free, both Eliza and Cassy settle into essentially domestic roles. Stowe, herself, was both a literary celebrity and one who lived her day-to-day life in the "woman's sphere." She bore seven children, and was the person responsible for the management of the household. Stowe's positions on women's issues, as with race, evolved over time. Like many women of her generation, she was slow to come to support suffrage.
Resources and Classroom Use
An invaluable Web site for anyone teaching Uncle Tom's Cabin is Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture, hosted by the University of Virginia. The site contains primary documents dealing with the era from 1830 to 1930, as well as the novel's complete text, critical responses to the book, movie clips and 3-D images, and playable songs of the period. Users will find an interactive timeline, lesson plans, and an interpretive exhibit on Uncle Tom's Cabin and slavery. Links to additional lesson plans focusing on Uncle Tom's Cabin can be found at the end of this article.
For AP U.S. History teachers, fitting Uncle Tom's Cabin into a curriculum where time is never on the instructor's side presents problems. A thorough analysis of the novel that touches on all aspects (e.g. racism, feminism, etc.) is really only possible during the post-exam period, and could be an excellent choice for that time frame. There are, however, other ways of integrating Uncle Tom's Cabin into the curriculum. One possibility is to have students read key chapters of Uncle Tom's Cabin for discussion in class. For instance, chapter 43, "Results," and chapter 44, "The Liberator," are excellent for giving students insight into how Stowe viewed emancipation and the future of the freed slaves.
Stowe's life (1808-1896) spanned the nineteenth century, and an examination of her life gives one an intimate glimpse of middle-class life and values of her era. Moreover, the success of Uncle Tom's Cabin gave her the opportunity to have friends and acquaintances among the movers and shakers of the time. AP U.S. History teachers could make Stowe a touchstone figure of the century -- introducing her with the Second Great Awakening and reintroducing her when discussing antebellum feminism, "woman's sphere," the American Colonization Society, abolitionism, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and post-Civil War feminism. The latter topic is particularly rich soil, and can include Stowe's courting by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, her defense of Lady Byron, and the notorious Beecher-Tilton affair (involving, among others, her brother Henry and Victoria Woodhull). Teachers choosing this strategy, however, should take the time to read Joan Hedrick's outstanding biography Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life.
Uncle Tom's Cabin can be reintroduced in twentieth-century studies when comparing the visions of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, and when discussing the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Based on Uncle Tom's Cabin and her beliefs regarding race and reform, where might Stowe stand in 1905 and in 1965? Group work followed by debate would help students see how attitudes of race have both changed and remained the same over time.
Uncle Tom's Cabin will probably never be the primary focus of an AP Exam DBQ or free-response question, but students who have studied the novel and its author will have a more complete understanding of the complexity of the issues surrounding slavery, emancipation, and race. It is, without question, a book that -- in whole or in part -- must be part of an AP U.S. History curriculum.
Cora Greer has taught in California, Massachusetts, and Maine -- most recently at the University of Maine at Machias. She has served as Reader and Table Leader at the AP U.S. History Reading; been a consultant in AP U.S. History, Building Success, and Vertical Teams; and won the College Board New England Region's Advanced Placement Recognition Award for Excellence in Teaching.
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