813 St7uYfofI m , ft 1 ( 'i ir > w < f J'H 1 K .1 1 F *:«,| ILLINOIS \ ; - SURVEY1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/americasmostfamoOOfost America's Most Famous Book Harriet Beecher Stowe (From a painting by John Chapman) America's Most Famous Book A Dissertation on Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom s Cabin and Uncle Tom Shows THOMAS HENRY FOSTER PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE FRIENDS OF MAY AND HARRY FOSTER AT THE TORCH PRESS CHRISTMAS, 1947 Copyright 1947 by T. Henry Foster The Author The fame of Harriet Beecher Stowe rests upon her success as a historian rather than on her literary accomplishments. That she had a literary bent is evidenced by her earliest ef- forts which antedate Uncle Toms Cabin by several years. These were Prize Tale: A New England Sketch (Lowell, 1834) ! ^ n &*' mentary Geography (Boston, 1835) ; and The Mayflower) or, Sketches of the Descendants of the Pilgrims (New York, 1843). None of these seem to have had a very wide circula- tion. Certainly they brought her no fame and little, if any, financial reward. Her influence arose from her writings on slavery in the United States, presumably fic- tion, but actually antislavery propaganda. Certainly Uncle Tom's Cabin and Dred had accelerating influence on the great Civil War. Mrs. Stowe was an opportunist, mildly a fa- natic, a writer of mediocre literature; but withal, a fine Christian character who wrote a best seller. Uncle Tom's Cabin is likely to 1 * 1 be read and remembered long after its famous author, now dead these fifty years, has been forgotten. Religious interest continues to pre- empt the top of the best seller list. Even in these godless times the Bible leads in sales. It is not my intention in the brief space of this book to write a biography of Mrs. Stowe. That has been done many times in the past fifty years; especially noteworthy is Forrest Wilson's Crusader in Crinoline published by Lippincott in 1941. Even one brought up to consider Uncle Tom's Cabin a perversion of the literary instinct can hardly escape the fascination of this book. Saints, Sinners and Beechers is another good book to browse in if the history of the Beecher family is of in- terest. In this book, Lyman Beecher Stowe, the author, tells us that one morning Thomas Beecher filled the pulpit of Plymouth Church for his more famous brother, Henry Ward Beecher. Noting a look of disappointment on many faces in his audience, Thomas an- nounced, "All those who came here this morn- ing to worship Henry Ward Beecher may now withdraw from the church — all who came to worship God may remain!" Recent research and study of circumstances I 6 ] surrounding the writing of Uncle Tom's Cab- in disprove certain statements that have per- sisted as facts for years in respect to it. One of these myths which still finds its way into articles about Mrs. Stowe is that the writing of the book was commenced at Lane Semi- nary, Cincinnati, when the author's husband, Professor Calvin Ellis Stowe, was a member of the faculty there. We have the word of Mrs. Stowe herself in a letter that not a line of the book was written anywhere but in her home in Brunswick, Maine. In 1933, Mrs. Stowe's son, Lyman Beecher Stowe, in a letter to me confirmed this. Also, I have the word of a former president of Lane Seminary, R. Ames Montgomery, D.D., who was ac- quainted with the facts. That there was a real person who was the Uncle Tom of Mrs. Stowe's book is common belief. Mrs. Stowe, in a letter still extant, has dispelled this fairy tale by stating definitely that she had no real Uncle Tom in mind as she wrote — that the character was "a com- posite picture of many good slaves" she had observed or talked to in Kentucky, where she gathered most of the material for her book. Nevertheless, because of the romance attached [ 7 1 to the belief, the story of a real flesh-and-blood Uncle Tom persists in the person of Josiah Henson, a slave born in Maryland in 1789, and who escaped to Canada. Henson wrote his autobiography to raise money with which to buy his brother's free- dom, and was probably the originator of the idea that he was Mrs. Stowe's leading man. He fooled Ripley (Believe It or Not) who, on October 3, 1938, published Henson's pic- ture over the caption "Uncle Tom — famous character of Harriet Beecher Stowe — actu- ally lived!" This was not the only time that Ripley "dreamed up" something. On July 31, 1935, he released a picture of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" which was nothing more or less than a station on the "Underground Railway" somewhere in Ohio! Harriet Beecher Stowe probably reached the apex of her career when she went to the White House in 1862 to see President Lin- coln. "So this is the little woman who wrote the book that made this big war." That is what Lincoln is reputed to have said to her, as re- ported by Lyman Beecher Stowe in his Saints, Sinners and Beechers. It was a homely greet- ing, but characteristic of the Great Emancipa- [ 8 1 tor. It was, probably, the climax of the phe- nomenal success of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It would be impossible to measure the in- fluence which Uncle Tom's Cabin had on the abolition of slavery, not only here in the United States, but elsewhere. In this connec- tion it would be interesting to speculate on what influenced its author other than her con- tact with slavery across the Ohio, while a resi- dent of Walnut Hills, Cincinnati. Queen Victoria died at the turn of the cen- tury, and with her died a state of mind. A state of mind, nevertheless, embalmed in such nov- els as Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World which ranks with the best sellers of all time. In America and England, according to a writer in the New York Times, "its sales were second only to Uncle Tom's Cabin. 11 As late as 1891 an investigator reported that he found the four leading books in well-to-do laborers' cottages in England to be: Pilgrim's Progress, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Wide, Wide World. The Wide, Wide World was followed by a stream of tear-compelling, sentimental vol- umes such as Tempest and Sunshine, The Lamplighter, and the many works of Mrs. E. 1 9 ] D. N. Southworth. Mrs. Stowe, we know, was an avid reader, and undoubtedly read Susan Warner's book published the year before she wrote her famous tale. Mrs. Southworth's Retribution appeared in 1849 in the National Era in which Uncle Tom's Cabin first ap- peared as a serial. Retribution was surely read by Mrs. Stowe — it could not help but have its influence on her writings. These, of course, are only surmises. But because the books re- ferred to reflected the attitude of the time, they must have had a direct effect on thou- sands of impressionable people, and an indi- rect effect on other writers like Mrs. Stowe, who thought herself a realist. Her characters, however, were not real people, because she never let herself know what the people in her books were really like. What Charles Dickens thought about Mrs. Stowe was expressed in a "confidential" letter he wrote August 4, 1854, from Boulogne, France, to a Mrs. Edgar Colden: "Mrs. Stowe's letter was pleasant, but — may I whisper it? I thought it a little con- ceited in its affectation of humility. Her moony memories are very silly I am afraid. Some of the people remembered the most 1 10 1 moonily, are terrible humbugs — mortal, deadly incarnation of cant and quackery." Dickens, of course was not an impartial judge of things American. Twelve years be- fore he penned this slur on Mrs. Stowe he had visited the United States for the first time, and his opinion of Americans as expressed in American Notes, was anything but flattering. Dickens — conceited and tiresome writer that he was — was desperately jealous always of the successes of his contemporaries. "Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on," wrote Julia Ward Howe; then wiped her pen, and dipped it in vitriol to tell James Russell Lowell, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, what she thought of Mrs. Stowe. I quote from Mrs. Howe's letter which runs in part as follows: "I pray that Mrs. Stowe vamoose to the ranch [her winter home in Florida] this au- tumn. What a good living she might make in Rome sitting for the Witch of Endor which she resembles, with her daughters for attend- ant imps. Excuse this note which has no ex- cuse save that the malignity of my nature [ n i longs to pour itself out on the whole New England." It is hard to imagine a private feud between two women like Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Howe, but if one existed, history has not recorded it. Mrs. Stowe needs no defense against the calumnies of the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic or anyone else. But let me re- mind you that Uncle Tom's Cabin sent Heine back to the Bible, and made such an impres- sion on Tolstoy in Russia that when he came to write, What is Art? \ he took it as an exam- ple of the highest type along with the writ- ings of Victor Hugo and Dostoievsky. Tolstoy was right. Mrs. Stowe's mind had the swing and rhythm of the great story-tel- lers. This was true not only of Uncle Tom's Cabin, but of her later works, Dred, The Ministers Wooing and The Pearl of Orr's Island. Mrs. Stowe (Harriet Elizabeth Beecher) was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 181 1, the seventh child of the Reverend Lyman Beecher, a distinguished Calvinist di- vine, and Roxana Foote, his first wife. At school, Harriet was a model student, fond of reading, and a good writer. At the age of r 12 1 twelve, she astonished her teachers and family by writing and reading at the close of the school year an essay entitled, Can the Immor- tality of the Soul Be Proved by the Light of Nature? This was not exactly precocity, as it would be regarded in the case of most twelve year olds. It was the awakening of an early consciousness that continued its development almost to the day of Mrs. Stowe's death. In 1824 we find her at her sister's "Hart- ford Female Seminary" where she remained as student and teacher until she removed with her parents to Cincinnati in 1832, where her father took up his duties as president of Lane Seminary. In 1836 at the age of twenty-five she married Professor Calvin Ellis Stowe, then a member of the small Lane faculty. Writing in the Lincoln Herald in June, 1946, Katherine Seymour Day, a granddaugh- ter of one of Mrs. Stowe's cousins, says: "They remained in Cincinnati until 1850, fac- ing tremendous hardships; cholera, when her sixth child died; typhoid, poverty, Kentucky mobs from across the river attacking Negroes and abolition groups, who helped escaping slaves lay the 'underground railway system' to get into Canada." I 13 ] In 1849, Professor Stowe accepted a pro- fessorship at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, to which place the family removed the following spring. Here Mrs. Stowe began the writing of Uncle Tom's Cabin, during the resentment and bitterness aroused in the north by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act by Congress in 1850. After the Brunswick sojourn, Mrs. Stowe lived for twelve years in Andover, Massa- chusetts (1852-64) where she was busy with her literary work, and where she wrote Dred; A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, Agnes of Sorrento, and The Pearl of Orrs Island. None of these, unless it be Dred, have any particular claim to fame. None certainly are collectors' items with the exception of Dred. Mrs. Stowe wrote some forty-five volumes. Few readers today can name more than one or two. Mrs. Stowe died July 1, 1896, in Hart- ford. She and her husband, two daughters and son, Henry, lie buried in the Andover Chapel Cemetery, in Andover, Massachusetts. If influence for everything good, and the awakening of a national conscience to a great wrong, plus a demand for millions of copies I 14 1 of her book from almost every corner of the earth, mark a great writer, then Harriet Beecher Stowe holds a unique place in our literature, and is, perhaps, America's greatest woman author. "The Spirit of the Lord is up- on me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver- ance to the captives ... to set at liberty them that are bruised." This lofty sentiment she in- scribed, in 1892, on the flyleaf of a copy of her famous book, published that same year by the Riverside Press. Could it be that Mrs. Stowe believed that she was divinely inspired to write that which would bring about a great reform and strike the fetters from an enslaved race? [ 15 J The Book and Some Others Collectors who insist on "earliest printing" rather than "first edition" in the case of Uncle Tom's Cabin must seek for a run of the Na- tional Era published in Washington, D. C, from January 5, 1851, to April 1, 1852. Here the story first appeared — the scarcest item of Stowiana, if I am not mistaken, of all. I have never been able to secure more than a single issue of the ten months' run — only two com- plete runs have ever appeared in the auction rooms. This is understandable considering the fact that at the time of publication the author was practically unknown, and unfor- tunately the magazine was printed on very poor paper which must have suffered severely from the ravages of time. As there are only three known unbound complete sets (forty- four numbers) of the National Era contain- ing Mrs. Stowe's story, it is obviously one of the scarcest items of Americana. In March, 1936, there showed up in the old Anderson Galleries in New York a complete set of the [ 16 ] UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; OR, LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY. BY HARRIET BEECIIER STOWE. VOL. I. BOSTON: JOHN P. JEWETT & COMPANY CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PROCTOR & WORTHINGTON. 1852. forty-four numbers which was knocked down to a dealer for the sum of $175.00. Compare this with the sale of a two-volume set of Uncle Tom's Cabin, first edition, in the original paper wrappers, which was sold in the same galleries in January, 1938, for $660.00! Val- ues had increased some in the interim, it is true, but the greater price which a buyer was willing to pay for books over the same work in magazine numbers is proof of the fact that a true first edition, in the estimation of a bib- liophile or collector, must be in book form and as such takes bibliographical precedence over magazines and newspapers, even if they antedate the published volume. How Uncle Tom's Cabin actually came to be written is told by Louise Littlefield in a letter to the Portland Sunday Telegram, July *9> I 93 I > from which I quote: "Urged by the wife of Reverend Edward Beecher, her brother, 'to write something to make the nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is,' a daughter of Mrs. Stowe has re- lated how her mother, crushing in her hand the letter containing the phrase, rose to her feet and exclaimed, 'God helping me, I will write something! I will if I live.' Mrs. Stowe I 17 ] was already writing for the newspapers to piece out her husband's scanty salary, and little Charley demanded his share of attention as babies always have done, but in the end, in spite of unfavorable circumstances, Uncle Tom's Cabin was written. "The death scene of Uncle Tom came to Mrs. Stowe during communion service while she was sitting in the family pew in the old First Parish Church opposite the entrance to the Bowdoin campus. After her return home, she locked herself in her room and wrote this chapter from which, as a nucleus, the book developed, on brown paper from the grocery store when her supply of stationery gave out. "Later Mrs. Stowe wrote the other chap- ters of Uncle Tom as time and inspiration served, and the wonder is, not that her story may have had some technical deficiencies, but that a book to influence the world could have been written at all in the intervals of rocking Charley's cradle and telling an inefficient maid how to make brown bread. "In the comfort of the dignified Dana home on State Street, with its pipe organ and well- chosen library, Mrs. Stowe found congenial intellectual companionship as well as a grate- [ 18 ] ful respite from her pressing household cares; and as she set down the story of Uncle Tom, it became her habit to take with her to Port- land the chapters written since her last visit and read them aloud to the assembled circle of the Danas." Uncle Tom's Cabin's first appearance as a serial in the National Era caused neither po- litical nor literary stir. It was accepted by such readers in the south to whose attention it came as just another antislavery blast. The paper did not have a large circulation even for those days and owing to Mrs. Stowe's ir- regularity in sending copy, it was necessary at times to skip an issue entirely, for which the publisher was obliged to print an apology to his readers. An outraged correspondent writ- ing from the south said it "exhibited a master- ful clutter of clear obf uscation" — a rhetori- cal gem, if nothing else! With the exception of a few grammatical errors and the like, the text printed in the Na- tional Era is identical with the first edition in book form, published in 1852. At the end of the story is a note, by the author, addressed to children, which does not appear in the book. Numbers 242, 251 and 259 are the miss- [ 19 ] ing issues of the magazine referred to above. The following paragraphs will constitute a bibliographical discussion of the first edi- tion of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It will be of lit- tle interest to any but book collectors, biblio- philes, bibliognosts, bibliopegs, and biblio- laters. Skip it, by all means, if you are not in- terested in bibliography; for it will be dry and uninteresting reading for the masses. Uncle Tom's Cabin in book form first ap- peared in March, 1852, in two volumes, bound in black cloth. The title page, Volume I, reads: UNCLE TOM'S CABIN;/ or,/ Life Among the Lowly. / by / Harriet Beecher Stowe. / Vol. I. / Boston : / John P. Jewett & Company. / Cleveland, Ohio: /Jewett, Proc- tor & Worthington. / 1852. / After the au- thor's name there is a small vignette depict- ing, possibly, a scene from the book. On the verso of the title page below the copyright notice, and at the foot of the page appears: Stereotyped by Hobard & Robbins, New England Type and Stereotype Foundry, Boston. Of this first edition, only 5,000 copies (10,000 volumes) were printed, which ac- counts for the scarcity of the book and the high prices which it has brought both in the [ 20 ] auction rooms and from rare book dealers. The two volumes of the first edition, as I have already stated, were bound in black cloth. On the back strip in gold letters are im- pressed the title "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "H. B. Stowe"; below: "Vol. I" (or "Vol. II") and at the foot: "J. P. Jewett & Co." The front cover is embellished with a large oval, blind-stamped, inside of which in gold stamp- ing appears the vignette adorning the title page. There are decorative fillets in each cor- ner, also blind-stamped. On the back cover the decorations are identical with those on the front, except that the vignette is without the gold which illumines the front. Briefly this describes the genuine first edi- tion ; it is not a strictly scientific collation but it will serve as a guide for anyone about to buy a "first" of which there are numerous spurious copies around, and which unscrupu- lous dealers sometimes palm off on the unin- formed and unwary. The fake-ability of first editions of this book is common knowledge in the rare book trade, especially with the tenth thousand, which has a slug reading "Tenth Thousand" on the title page (the genuine first edition, as [ 21 ] already stated, was only 5,000 copies.) By careful erasure of the words "Tenth Thou- sand," the book is made to pass for a first. This will not fool an expert dealer who will exam- ine the place of erasure under a magnifying glass, and being forewarned will detect the imposture. But the poor bookbuyer who is dealing with a crooked dealer will be swin- dled out of several hundred dollars if he is taken in by such business. He may be just as happy with his faked volume as if he had bought a genuine "first," but he has uncon- sciously and involuntarily been a party to a confidence game! John P. Jewett, the publisher of Uncle Tom's Cabin, should have gone on to fame and fortune — but he didn't, evidently be- cause he did not realize what a prize fish he had hooked in Mrs. Stowe's book. He seems to have lost his money in the panic of '57, and later was selling a concoction called "Peru- vian Syrup," possibly a soothing syrup for frayed nerves! He ended his career in a mod- est bookshop in New York. No one knows exactly how many copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin have been printed or sold. [ 22 j In the year of publication, sales mounted to over 300,000 — a record at that time for any new book, excepting the Bible. Not being pro- tected by copyright, it was issued in twelve different pirated editions within a year of its initial appearance. Millions of copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin have been printed; bibliographers estimate that it has been translated into nearly 100 for- eign languages or dialects. In England it appeared in thirteen weekly parts in wrappers, with twenty-seven illustra- tions by George Cruikshank, and sold for two pence per number, equal to about fifty cents for the complete set. This edition, complete and in good condition, is one of the scarcest of all the editions of the book, and one of the hardest to find now, ninety-five years after publication. A London bookseller in 1938 listed in his catalog a copy, described as "fine," for $172.00. It probably could not be bought today for less than $200.00. The first American edition consisted of only 5,000 copies in black cloth. There were a few sets bound in red cloth for presentation copies and possibly a few in other colored bindings; [ 23 ] these, of course, are scarce. A copy in red cloth sold at the Anderson Galleries in April, 1935, for $400.00. Very little has been recorded about the price at which the first edition was sold to wholesalers and the public. I have before me, however, a copy of an agent's announcement offering: Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lowly: by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. For sale, wholesale and retail, at the pub- lisher's lowest cash prices, viz. Single Copy, in paper, (2 vols.) $1 ; cloth, lettered, $1.50. The trade supplied at a discount of 20 per cent, with a further discount of 5 per cent for cash on sales of not less than 5 copies. William Harned, Publishing Agent 48 Beekman Street New York, May 10, 1852 Publisher Jewett, after allowing the twen- ty-five per cent discount for at least five cop- ies, had just fifty-six cents per volume for his efforts in turning out one of the greatest books [ 24 ] of all time. It is no wonder he deserted the publishing business for the sweeter rewards of Peruvian Syrup! Mrs. Stowe was no more popular in cer- tain parts of the north than was her book. In the south she engendered so much hatred and resentment that her life would have been in danger had she ventured to enter any slave- holding state. This hatred of the author and her book was immediately responsible for a flood of anti-Stowe literature, which found ready sale throughout the south. Space does not permit of more than pass- ing reference to these long-forgotten and out- of-print efforts to belittle Mrs. Stowe, and to show slavery in its most favorable light. Three of them which had, possibly, the largest cir- culation — chiefly in the south — were, Uncle Tom's Cabin As It Is, by W. L. C. Smith, The Cabin and the Parlor, by J. T. Randolph, and English Serfdom and American Slavery by Lucien B. Chase, printed, strangely enough, in Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Cin- cinnati, respectively! These works, like perhaps a dozen others, painted a picture of slavery which must have been very heartening to the slave owner, and [ 25 ] which portrayed Uncle Tom as a happy and — at times — charming old fellow, who was quite content with his fetters and wanted no more freedom than his "owners" allowed him! W. L. Derby & Co., the Cincinnati pub- lishers of Smith's book, announced the forth- coming work in the most humanitarian and apologetic terms, with a printed bill which read: "The object of the author is to represent the slave in his rude but comfortable cabin, his daily occupations, and pastimes, the re- lation between master and slave, the mis- taken impulses and misconceived views of the northern Philanthropist, etc., and to represent the passions and sentiments in their natural forms, as the same are dis- played in the humblest lot of society, thus showing that, in the case of the slave at least, contentment bestows more happiness than freedom, and at the same time to rep- resent, as it is, a class of people, viz: the planter to whom justice seldom has been done, and whose character, as exhibited in every day life, is well calculated to win the amiable judgement of the world." I 26 ] An exhibit of a twisted philosophy in the light of our own present day understanding of the values of freedom! How an enslaved people could be content without freedom (al- though freedom does not always bring con- tentment), is difficult to understand! Lucien B. Chase dedicated his book "To the aristocratic ladies of Great Britain." He suggests that they do something "to ameliorate the condition of English Serfdom." This was a rebuke for members of the English nobility who, stirred by the horrors of slavery in the states as exposed by Mrs. Stowe's book, were lending sympathetic aid to the abolitionist cause. [ 27 ] The Play I have before me a quaint old show bill an- nouncing the coming: Friday, May 10, 1866, at Longbottom, Ohio, of a showboat troupe, playing Uncle Tom's Cabin. Illustrated with rude cuts are Uncle Tom reading the Bible to Eva; that ever "heart-rending and tear- provoking" scene, the death of little Eva, with angels hovering over her bed, and the usual quota of weeping women and maudlin men standing by. Of course, Topsy was there, too. "Take the children and give them an ideal and lasting lesson in American history. It is delightful, wonderful, instructive and moral," reads the bill. Whether or not the perform- ance constituted an "ideal lesson in American history" may be open to debate, but certainly it has been a lasting one, for the stage run of Uncle Tom was a continuous performance from 1853 to 1930, beating the record of Abie's Irish Rose by just seventy-two years! It is true there have been, in recent years, revivals by little theatre groups, other players [ 28 ] TOWERING ABOVE ITS CONTEMPORIZES NO AMERICAN PLAY HAS EVER BEIA SO ENTHUSIASTICAUY RECEfYlO A GRAND PLAY SUPERBLY PRESENTED BY AN EXCELLENT COMPANY. iVaftrtilfovWltoHirM UNCLE TOfS CABIN TAKE THE CHILDREN rr isdixjghttvl WONDIATUL. wsmucnvE AND MOUU- EXHIBITED -AT LONOBOTTOM. FRI.MAY. 10 1866 and movies, but as far as the old-time, honest- to-goodness Uncle Tom's Cabin show is con- cerned, it is as dead as the original Topsy of the play herself, who passed away at an ad- vanced age in Watertown, South Dakota, some fourteen or fifteen years ago. Famous were Lotta Crabtree as Topsy, David Belasco as Uncle Tom, Mary Pickford and Fay Tem- pleton as Eva, and Theodore Roberts as Si- mon Legree. The play, Uncle Tom's Cabin, had in many sections almost as much influence as the book itself. There were millions who had never read it, and who learned all they knew about the horrors of slavery in the United States from the living, moving figures who imper- sonated, year after year, the homely charac- ters portrayed by their famous creator. In 1853 the United States was ready for Uncle Tom's Cabin on the stage. Its premiere was followed by a run that lasted until 1930, when, according to the Theatre Guild Mag- azine (January, 1931 ) , there was not a single company anywhere playing it. The run was as wide as it was long. Uncle Tom's Cabin was played in theatres everywhere — in cities, towns, villages — frequently in tents. The [ 29 ] "Tom Tent Show," years ago, was as much an institution as the circus, travelling overland by wagon, or by showboat on our western riv- ers. The play immediately caught on in Eng- land where a dramatization, unlike the Amer- ican version, opened in Manchester in Feb- ruary, 1853, less than a year after the book was published here. In the English version there is a scene that out-Stowe's Mrs. Stowe, when Cassy shoots Legree; and the dying Uncle Tom takes the blame for the murder, "adding one more laurel to his crown of self- sacrifice." It is said that as far as England was concerned, the play was a failure, which is not to be wondered at because at that time few theatregoers overseas had been stirred by Mrs. Stowe's book as had the millions in the States. The original American dramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by one George L. Aiken, who seems to have been lost to fame. Aiken's play was more or less of a skeleton from which the actors took their parts, improvising as they went along, fre- quently deviating from the story in the book itself. Lack of properties, especially in the case of tent shows, made such interpolations [ 30 1 practically necessary. But Uncle Tom audi- ences did not mind — the early and pious dy- ing of little Eva which had — as time went on — become more of a habit than a tragedy, moved them to such paroxysms of tears and sobbing that all else was forgotten once the play was over! Most of the parts — in fact practically all of them including Uncle Tom himself — were taken by white players. The Negro had not invaded the American stage until about the time of the incomparable Bert Williams, the first featured Negro in a white company, and who rose to fame between twenty and thirty years ago. Now we have all Negro and mixed plays as witness Finians Rainbow, Call Me Mister, Bloomer Girl, Carmen and Anna Lu- casta. Should there be a revival of Uncle Tom's Cabin for today's bills, Negroes would surely play the parts of Uncle Tom and Topsy. Re- vivals of Uncle Tom's Cabin plays in the past seventeen years have been spasmodic and far between. The last appearance on the legiti- mate stage of which there is any record seems to have opened at the Studebaker Theatre in Chicago in September, 1933, with DeWolf [ 31 ] Hopper in the title role. It couldn't have been much of a success in spite of Hopper's fame, as the seats sold for twenty-five, fifty, seventy- five cents and one dollar. Matinees were low- er. Uncle Tom's Cabin, the play, did not al- ways have smooth sailing. It was frequently assailed for "stirring up class hatred." In the deep south it dared not raise a curtain. In Texas, even, it almost caused a riot when in October, 1933, the Rice Institute Dramatic Club in Houston announced it would put the play on the next month. Said the president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy: "There are 10,000 members of our organiza- tion in Texas, and we will not permit the showing of a play as unfair to the south as Uncle Tom's Cabin." Ten thousand deter- mined women are not to be sneezed at, north or south; the play didn't go on. Early in 1944, ft became known in Holly- wood that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was pre- paring to film Uncle Tom's Cabin. Said Time, March 13, 1944: "In Hollywood last fort- night the bloodhounds were baying at M-G-M's heels. Bounding from ice cake to ice cake, the harassed studio finally made the I 32 ] Ohio shore, stopped only long enough to drop the baby in the river." In words of one sylla- ble, pressure groups of various kinds demand- ed that the picture be banned on racial grounds. M-G-M announced production had been "indefinitely postponed" — which in Hollywood means forever. As late as September, 1945, resentment over the play flared up in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the city controller cancelled a presen- tation of the play, after the secretary of the Union Industrial Council (C. I.O.) had written to the socialist mayor, that the organ- ization acting to support "inter-racial unity" had adopted a resolution "opposing its presen- tation." What would Mrs. Stowe have thought of that? Mrs. Stowe did not receive a single penny for the dramatic rights of the play, although it was one of the most popular in the history of the American theatre. That she never saw the play has been asserted many times, pre- sumably because she was opposed to the theatre and theatregoing. However, Forrest Wilson in Crusader in Crinoline tells us that she saw the play in Boston, and that she "wept and laughed with the rest of the audience." [ 33 ] It is true that Mrs. Stowe's life provided little material for stirring drama — certainly it was bare of romance, nevertheless, by the superb acting of Helen Hayes, the play, Har- riet, had a successful run at Henry Miller's Theatre in New York and elsewhere in 1943. Harriet, unlike Uncle Tom's Cabin, could of- fend no one; it was a wholesome homely play about a remarkable family — the Beechers. In addition to the stage, the influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin was felt in many direc- tions, especially in music and art. Songs by the score were written and published glorifying Little Eva and Uncle Tom. Several titles ap- peared in 1852, the year of publication of the book. Almost as soon as the book was in the dealers' hands, northerners were singing Gen- tle Eva, The Death of St. Clare, I Am Going There, Uncle Tom's Glimpse of Glory, Eva's Parting and Uncle Tom's Lament for Eva: "Again the sun in beauty Arose in cloudless dawn; Again sweet flowers in fragrance Bloomed gaily o'er the lawn, But Uncle Tom ne'er heeds them, [ 34 ] ■^i%j^$ Jaj^^ - m i.i .-*$*. A SIC N E r 1'. . I .-I UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. BOSTON ■** Published 1>7 OLIVER DITSON IIS WbsJungtun Si COulDSBCRRy SBRainaROSCO h D HI WITT. CwBR*ik»RD»CO C.C ClAff » CO vVor rwr* Cleveland. VOrieanj luuisviiii boston &it*~td arr.rrfu^ tu art of lo-qrat, in. th* rear I- M * f Oarer Iiurarx r*. tA* ttf^A^ frito! - I or Ma.-r «* lerffto He's joined the angel throng And strikes his harp immortal To Eva's heavenly song." Artists as well as singers found inspiration for their work in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Prom- inent among these was famed book illustrator, E. W. Kemble, who illustrated a two-volume set of the book (Riverside Press, 1892) in a limited edition, autographed by Mrs. Stowe, for subscribers only. Currier and Ives, sensing the tremendous popularity of the subjects, published Flight of Eliza, Uncle Tom, Uncle Tom and Little Eva and two Views from Un- cle Tom's Cabin. In addition there were Staf- fordshire china and wallpaper decorated with scenes from the book; cameos and seals by Josiah Wedgewood. My collection of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which now numbers nearly 300 volumes, includes copies of the first editions printed in Amer- ica, England, Germany and other countries. There are likewise "association" copies and many volumes pertaining to Mrs. Stowe and her writings — a fairly respectable collection of Stowiana. My scrapbooks of Stowiana clip- pings and autograph letters, gathered over a 1 35 ] period of eighteen years, contain 270 items. Hardly a month passes but that there appears in print somewhere, a reference to Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the Beechers. One of my most interesting experiences in getting together my collection of Stowiana occurred in the New York auction rooms. In the old Anderson Galleries where I was at- tending a sale, a parcel of books was listed in the catalog as: "Uncle Tom's Cabin, H. B. Stowe, 100 volumes, various editions, boxed, sold as is." The bidding started at twenty-five cents per volume, I ran it up to one dollar, when my competitor in the bidding suddenly raised the bid to two dollars per volume, at which price they were knocked down to him. I thought no more about the matter until ten years later, when the identical 100 volumes came up for sale in another auction gallery, and for which I put in a bid of one dollar per volume. To make a short story still shorter, I got the books; but imagine my surprise when I found that they were in the same box in which they had appeared at the Anderson Galleries, and that apparently they had never been out of it in those ten years! I had been "runner-up" in my bidding (as I afterwards I 36 J learned) with a very wealthy newspaper owner, publisher and collector, who evidently had no particular interest in the books, which between sales had been in storage. Visitors to my library sometimes ask me if I have read all these copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and are shocked when I tell them that I have never read the book, not a line of it, and never intend to. "Why?" they ask. "Be- cause I want to maintain a purely biblio- graphical attitude toward it." That usually ends the conversation! [ 37 ] ! I. is ! e: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA •u ■ 1 1 3 0112 000370988 ; ! iil J