Last Updated: February 12, 2025
On June 5, 1851, the first chapter of what would become the landmark novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin appeared in the National Era, an anti-slavery newspaper published in Washington, DC. This was the first appearance of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s passionate evocation of life in the American South under slavery. Originally intended only to run for a few weeks, Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a 40-week serial.
When the entire book was published in two volumes in March 1852—after building a huge audience during its serialization—ten thousand copies sold in the first week. Born in Connecticut, Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin while living in Brunswick, Maine. A copy of the original June 5th edition is a treasured object in the collections of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford.
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