Stamped from the Beginning

Stamped from the Beginning

by

Ibram X. Kendi

Harriet Beecher Stowe Character Analysis

Harriet Beecher Stowe was a white author from Maine who was involved in both the early women’s rights movement and the abolitionist movement. Her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) was widely read and praised by many fellow white abolitionists. However, some Black readers (such as Martin R. Delany) criticized Stowe’s portrait of the submissive, loyal Uncle Tom.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe Character Timeline in Stamped from the Beginning

The timeline below shows where the character Harriet Beecher Stowe appears in Stamped from the Beginning. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 15: Soul
Discrimination, Racist Ideas, and Ignorance Theme Icon
Segregationists and Assimilationists vs. Antiracists  Theme Icon
Media, Institutions, and the Transmission of Knowledge Theme Icon
The Invention of Blackness and Whiteness Theme Icon
The Illogic of Racism Theme Icon
Harriet Beecher Stowe is a middle-class white woman from Maine, the daughter of a prominent religious family and... (full context)
Discrimination, Racist Ideas, and Ignorance Theme Icon
Segregationists and Assimilationists vs. Antiracists  Theme Icon
Media, Institutions, and the Transmission of Knowledge Theme Icon
The Invention of Blackness and Whiteness Theme Icon
The Illogic of Racism Theme Icon
In 1852, Stowe publishes a book entitled Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in which she praises Black “docility,” fondly describing... (full context)
Discrimination, Racist Ideas, and Ignorance Theme Icon
Segregationists and Assimilationists vs. Antiracists  Theme Icon
Media, Institutions, and the Transmission of Knowledge Theme Icon
The Invention of Blackness and Whiteness Theme Icon
The Illogic of Racism Theme Icon
...although he is troubled by its emphasis on submissiveness. Douglass offers an assimilationist critique of Stowe’s support of colonization. Yet the Black writer and doctor Martin R. Delany is most unequivocally... (full context)
Discrimination, Racist Ideas, and Ignorance Theme Icon
Segregationists and Assimilationists vs. Antiracists  Theme Icon
The Invention of Blackness and Whiteness Theme Icon
The Illogic of Racism Theme Icon
...that the enslaved are not able to properly understand the aims and tactics of abolition. Stowe steps in, attempting to stop the two men from quarreling. They agree to “forg[ive], but... (full context)