To Advance Liberty

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, Connecticut, United States, into the influential and devout Beecher family. She was the sixth of eleven children born to Reverend Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote Beecher. After her mother’s early death, Harriet studied at the Hartford Female Seminary, founded by her sister Catharine Beecher. In 1832, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where her father led Lane Theological Seminary. There, she encountered both literary society and the harsh realities of slavery through the stories of escaped enslaved people and the violence of anti-Black riots.

In 1836, Harriet married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor of biblical literature, and they had seven children. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 prompted her to begin writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was serialized in The National Era in 1851 and published as a book in 1852. The novel gained a wide readership and deepened anti-slavery sentiment in the North and abroad. Stowe said she was inspired by a vision during a communion service and also drew from personal loss—especially the death of her young son—which shaped her empathy for those suffering under slavery.

Over her life, Harriet Beecher Stowe published more than thirty books, including novels, essays, and travel memoirs. She later supported married women’s legal rights and helped found the Hartford Art School. After her husband’s death in 1886, her health declined, and she likely experienced dementia. She died on July 1, 1896, in Hartford, Connecticut, at age 85. Stowe is remembered as a writer who brought moral clarity to public debate, guided by her religious convictions and social conscience.