hank paulson's book. i don't know that anything has had more of a lasting impact on what we're talking about today than what happened a couple of years ago with regard to the meltdown. and i think reading secretary paulson's new autobiography will be in lightening. i've gotten pretty frustrated with him at the end of his secretary and i want to give him the benefit of the doubt and hear his story since he was there with all the discussions. i'm also reading a new book that andy andrews who's a local obama author who which is the final summit because it's an inspirational journey. he takes real people from the past, winston churchill, george

washington carver and he weaves them in a fictitious way but using real life examples to inspire us to be better leaders. and andy is a personal friend and i also just finished. and my favorite book of all times is harper lee's to kill a mockingbird. she's not only a friend, a resident of my district. but is someone that has touched the world. i think it's second only to the bible in terms of the most number of copies printed in the most number of languages around the world. so every year i make it a point to read to kill a mockingbird. ..

>> welcome to the harriet beecher stowe center, i'm katherine cain, the executive correcter, and we're just -- director, and we're just delighted that you're here to introduce david reynolds' new book. very exciting. the harriet beecher stowe center here in hartford, connecticut, uses stowe's story to inspire social justice and positive change. we are not just about the past and the issues, the american issues of the 19th century, but we want to take those issues and look at them in the present and try and inspire people to be good citizens today and

participate in solving today's problems so that we can all continue to work towards fulfilling the promise of america. that's our mission. harriet beecher stowe, of course, best known for "uncle tom's cabin," an amazingly interesting and complex book and a very important book in american history. the book is going to be officially released on june 14, 2011, which is actually harriet beecher stowe's 200th birthday. but tonight here as we are in mid may, you can buy at the stowe center tonight your own copies of david's book, and you will be able to get the book signed, of course, and the price tonight is a special price just for tonight. so when you go to your book store on june 14th -- you should just get the book tonight. [laughter] um, we had the opportunity to start to get to know david

reynolds, we're trying to figure this out, 18 months or a couple years ago. because, you know, a book like this has a very long lead time, and an author works very hard on all of the background and research before that writing starts. so we began to have conversations with him and, um, as he was also talking with historians about harriet beecher stowe. so we're actually very delighted tonight to meet him in person. this is exciting. there is a human being behind that voice on the telephone. david re hold ins received his ba from from amherst college. he taught english and american studies at northwestern university, barnard college, new york university and rutgers, and then in 1989 he moved to the city university of new york, and he is now distinguished professor of english and american studies at the ph.d. program in english at the graduate center. he's a widely published author,

and his books have been recognized with awards including the bancroft prize and the ambassador book award. he was also the finalist for the national book critics' circle award. he was the editor for six books and is the author of "waking giant: america in the age of jackson," "john brown: abolitionist, the man who ceded civil rights." john brown also a connecticutan as stowe is, so you are already seeing some overlaps here. author of "wallet whitman's -- walt whitman's america," a book with the straightforward title, "walt whitman." he's the author of beneath the american renaissance in the age of emerson and melville, and i certainly found that that s word, subversive, came up quite a bit in his analysis of "uncle

tom's cabin "and its impact. and david is the author of faith and fiction, so when you see this list of books, you begin to understand how much he may -- how often he may have run into stowe and uncle tom's cabin in his other work. his latest book that we are talking about tonight is "mightier than the sword: uncle tom's cabin and the battle for america," which as i mentioned will be released by norton on june 14th, stowe's 200% birthday. also released that day will be a new, modern version of the splendid edition of "uncle tom's cabin," an absolutely gorgeous document that you have to wait until then to get. so, please, join me in welcoming david reynolds to the harriet beecher stowe center. david. [applause] >> thanks very much, katherine.

um, what i'm going to do is just comment for 15 or 20 minutes introducing my book and then katherine and i are going to have a friendly dialogue and, hopefully, open it up for q&a from the audience. it's great to be here at the historic stowe center, the home where harriet beecher stowe spent the last two decades of her life right nearby to mark twain. such an incredibly rich environment here. and i've done research here, and i truly appreciate everything that the stowe centers has done, and this is such a great year to come to the stowe center in hartford. the 200th anniversary of the birth of harriet beecher stowe whose anti-slavery novel, "uncle tom's cabin," created such an uproar that lincoln reportedly

called her the little lady who made this great war. possibly apocryphal, that statement. i happen to think it's true from the research i've done, but a lot of people were saying very, very similar things about that novel other than abe lincoln. and it's the ideal moment, it's also the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war, so it's the ideal time to reconsider stowe and her role in igniting the civil war and influencing world history right up to modern times. although "uncle tom's cabin" is vaguely associated in most people's minds with the civil war, some historians have said it had only minimal influence on the politics behind the war. but this view ignores the tremendous power of public opinion in america which was

regarded as stronger than the government, an idea lincoln echoed when he declared, "our government rests on public opinion. whoever can change public opinion can change the government." lincoln was recognizing what some historians today have forgotten. culture and politics are often treated nowadays as separate domains. over here we can read book after book on lincoln, his team of rivals, um, the politics behind the civil war or civil war battles, civil war generals, civil war soldiers. and then over here we read books on literary works, on art, on music, on all those -- on theater, on culture. and then there are some books that have a few chapters on the politics and a few chapters over here on the culture but we have

to realize that culture and politics always interpenetrate. and too many historian overlook that. i think too many on both side of the divide, the cultural historians and the political historians neglect that. when we look at history, we realize how vividly culture and politics are not separate. they interpenetrate, and very often it's the cultural outsiders, the outliers who lead the way and then politics follow. sometimes the cultural outliers are forces of destruction. the recent prime example is al-qaeda, a tiny cultural group, splinter group that has guided much of western politics for the last decade.

right now the jury is still out about the ultimate political outcome of another strong cultural force, the social networking behind the arab spring. but sometimes cultural outliers can have identify my good results. one things, for example, of gandhi, martin luther king or others like him who have led directly to political change that can be called positive. of and on the positive side, few cultural phenomenon have swept, have swayed public opinion as powerfully as the novel "uncle tom's cabin," which was central to making america a more egalitarian nation. harriet beecher stowe was an unlikely fomenter of social and political change; diminutive and

dreamy-eyed, she was a harried housewife with a brood of children. she had various obscure illnesses worsened by her chronic hypochondria. she was married to a brilliant but impractical husband. but, but driven by her passionate hatred of slavery, she wrote "uncle tom's cabin," which when it appeared in 1852 broke sales records for american fiction and became an international sensation. the boston preacher, theodore parker, said it has excited more attention than any book since the invention of printing. and the author, henry james, noted: it was for an immense number of people much less a book than a state of vision, a feeling and consciousness in which they didn't sit or read or

appraise half the time, but they walked and talked and laughed and cried. my new book, "mightier than the sword: uncle tom's cabin and the battle for america," which as katherine mentioned will be officially published on the 2 200th birthday, came from an idea i had to write a biography of a book. now, i previously have written biographies of cultural outliers like john brown, walt whitman and week books about melville and poe and hawthorne and so forth. but now i wanted to tell the story about "uncle tom's cabin. "i wanted to explore its place in history, what came together in stowe's life and time to bring her to write it.

my book shows how the novel's unprecedented popularity can be explained by the fact that it absorbed images from virtually every realm of o -- culture. religion, anti-slavery rutting, sensational fiction, minstrel shows among others. it brought all of these elements together in memorable characters and two compelling plot lines. the northern one about the thrilling escape of the fugitive slaves, eliza and george harris with their son harry, and the southern one tracing the painful separation of the enslaved uncle tom from his family when he is sold into the deep south. stowe had learned a lot about popular culture when she was a magazine writer in the 1840s.

and in her novel she channeled all of these popular images and more that she'd picked up as an apprentice writer and channeled them into a deeply human narrative. it still moves us today. and it's a narrative with a crystal clear message; slavery was evil and so was the political and economic institutions that supported it. "uncle tom's cabin" shaped the political debates over slavery in ways that have not been recognized. from a dramatic picture of the horrors of slavery intensified the rise of people behind lincoln and the republicans because it made abolitionism which previously had been an unpopular splinter movement -- actual splintered movement, divided among many different

forms of anti-slavery, most of them unpopular -- it made it suddenly attractive to millions of people who formerly had been indifferent to slavery or who cared little about it. and at the same time the novel caused a surge of pro-slavery sentiment in the south. after all, why did the south have to defend slavery? twelve american presidents had owned slaves including jefferson, washington, many be others. most of the supreme court justices, you know, why defend slavery? it was part of the system. but suddenly "uncle tom's cabin" comes along, and you have this incredible surge of pro

documents, and it exposes them to the blessing of western civilization. so "uncle tom's cabin" dramatically increased the tensions that led to the civil war. by the eve of the war, one southerner of the day declared "uncle tom's cabin" has given birth to a horror against slavery in the northern mind which all the politicians could never have created and has done more than all else to array the north and the south against each other. and my book traces the details of that and also how the novel continued to stir up controversy even through reconstruction and well beyond into the 20th century. its influence was amplified by popular plays and a host of merchandise including puzzles and games and this and that and everything known as tomitudes.

now, whether it's a play or novel, "uncle tom's cabin" was important as an agent of emancipation. it gave impetus abroad to revolutions in russia, china, brazil and cuba. in america the novel remained particularly inspiring to african-americans. the ex-slave -- excuse me, frederick douglass, for example, maintained that no one had done more for the progress of black people in america than harriet beecher stowe. but how could "uncle tom's cabin" become a catalyst of civil rights? after all, that's not how most people today see the novel. whose title character, uncle tom, has become a buy word for a spineless sellout, someone who betrays his own race.

we tend to think of the novel as an old-fashioned, sentimental affair that features the death of an on see question crouse enslaved black man and his blond, angelic child friend, little eva. but this view, this negative view of the novel is egregiously inaccurate. it does a gross injustice to "uncle tom's cabin." uncle tom in the novel is actually a muscular, dignified man in his 40s who is notable precisely because he does not betray his race. one reason he passes up a chance to escape from his kentucky plantation is that he doesn't want to put his fellow slaves in danger. and later on he endures a brutal whipping which leads to his death because he refuses to tell

his master where two enslaved black women are hiding. as for little eva, she bravely accepts her coming death, and she says she would gladly give up her life if that would lead to the emancipation of the millions of americans, enslaved black people. together tom and eva form an interracial bond that offers lesson even today about tolerance and decency. unfortunately, these worthy themes were lost in some of the stage versions of "uncle tom's cabin." stowe's novel yielded the most popular and longest-running play in american history. the first uncle tom play appeared in 1852, and countless others followed. by the 1890s there were hundreds of acting troupes that

fanned out across north america putting on "uncle tom's cabin" in every town, hamlet, city. many companies toured as far away as india, australia, china and as you remember from "the king and i," siam. the play was seen by more people than read the book, although the book it remained extremely popular. and in 1905 "the new york times" said the two most popular books in america are the bible and "uncle tom's cabin." and it kept up a very, very steady presence. the play was seen regularly until about the 1950s and then sporadically after that. there was recently a wonderful staging by alex roe last fall at

the metropolitan playhouse in the village. now, in many of those earlier plays uncle tom was falsely presented as a stooped, obedient, old fool. and that's partly where the uncle tom stereotype came from. eva's death in those plays was frequently a syrupy scene in which the actress was hauled heavenward by rope or piano wire against the backdrop of angels and billowing clouds. one might think that such spectacle would defang stowe's revolutionary themes and turn "uncle tom's cabin" into a laughable piece of harmless entertainment, but actually this didn't happen. after all, the play is always

about race relations and the wickedness of slavery. and so this theme had riled up many southerners before the war, and then after the war during the long period of jim crow -- that period of legalized segregation that lasts from the 1880s right to the early 1950s -- many white supremacists during that era found "uncle tom's cabin" really, really threatening. a very, very dangerous novel. most notably, the popular southern author thomas dixon saw an uncle tom play, and he wept. he was so infuriated by what he saw as its endorsement of black power. he wrote bitterly of harriet beecher stowe: that little yankee woman wrote a book.

the single act of that woman's will caused the war, killed a million men, desolated, ruined the south and changed the history of the whole world. now, dixon responded to stowe by writing many bestsellers in which he appropriated the character names and completely reversed them to create a pro-southern, anti-black statement. and one of the novels that he wrote, a massive bestseller called "the klansman," became the sour of e.w. griffith's "the birth of a nation," which was masterfully made in the sense that it completely redefined what hollywood is all about because it created the whole vocabulary and grammar of modern movies. at the same time, it was threematically abhorrent.

thematically abhorrent, and it caused the resurrection of the ku klux klan who are the heros of the movie, and it stamped the dna of race relations for generations during the jim crow era through its depiction of blacks as lustful beasts who preyed on white women. and even as these reactionaries were getting, gaining a very wide audience during the jim crow era, "uncle tom's cabin" itself and its spin-offs helped to keep alive the real message. there were nine sympathetic silent films based on stowe's novel which was also disseminated in many other ways in the popular culture. stowe was fervently defended by african-american leaders like langston houston, w.e.b. duboise

who wrote of stowe, best to a frail, overburdened yankee woman with a steadfast moral purpose. we americans, black and white, owe gratitude for the freedom and the union that exists today in the united states of america. and over time stowe's vision gained ascendancy in america. during the civil rights movement, despite the condemnation of being called an uncle tom, those who acted in the true spirit of stowe's firm, principled, nonviolent uncle tom. people like martin luther king, rosa parks and many who participated in the peaceful sit-ins and marchs proved to be the most successful in the end in bringing about positive

change. but an author to have so great an impact as harriet beecher stowe seems unlikely, if not impossible. especially for a time when women had no political voice. of course, they couldn't vote, and even when she toured, she didn't speak. you weren't really allowed to speak if you were a, quote, proper woman. [laughter] speak in public. anyway, a time when women had no political voice and in a nation about which the scottish writer sidney smith in the four corners of the globe, who reads an american book or goes to an american play? he said that in 1820. he soon learned who could be read moe of all -- most of all, harriet beecher stowe. stowe herself had an explanation of her impact. she said god wrote "uncle tom's cabin."

always helps to have a divine friend. [laughter] after the novel had had become a bestseller and her brother edward warned her not to become vain about its popularity, she told her friend, dear edward, he need not be troubled. he doesn't know i didn't write that book. [laughter] and her friend exclaimed, what? you did not write uncle tom? stowe replied, no. i only put down what i saw. it all came before me in visions. one after another. and i put them down in words. now, her claims about the divine authorship of "uncle tom's cabin " satisfied her own pious yearnings, but they raised questions about the actual background and the repercussions of her landmark novel.

the issues at the heart of "uncle tom's cabin" such as race and religion -- a very religious book -- gender, law, morality, democracy are just as vital today as they were in harriet beecher stowe's time. those interested in these issues were, frankly, just anybody who enjoys a terrific story that tugs at the heart strings. funny, i've been teaching the novel for years, but even jaded old me when i was reading it for my class last time, i actually started crying. i said, now, wait a minute, i'm a teacher. i'm not supposed to cry over a novel. [laughter] anyway, anybody who wants to be emotionally moved should read or reread "uncle tom's cabin." there are many wonderful

editions including by joan hedrick, came out with a first edition, the norton edition. it's great to have joan here, by the way. i, the edition that katherine mentioned was called the splendid edition because it had 117 illustrations by billings who had done seven ill streges in the initial -- illustrations in the original edition. and what's really neat about these is that they're not caricatured representations. so many of the later editions of "uncle tom's cabin" that came out, particularly during the jim crow era, really are stereotypical in their representations of many of the characters. and i will guarantee you that what's great about the splendid edition is that, um, we'd hoped to have it here today, by the way, but the printer just messed up at the last minute.

they'll be here very, very soon. what's great is that, you know, he really captured the essence. it was true in the first edition and in the splendid edition in which there are 117, it's even more true because he really captured the essence of the story. and i see my other book, my other new book, "mightier than the sword: uncle tom's cabin and the battle for america," as really a companion volume to the novel. and i think that if you read both books in this 200th anniversary year, you'll learn a lot about america. and joan hedrick has referred to "uncle tom's cabin "as perhaps our national p pick. and -- epic. and you will see why the novel

stands out as one of the most influential cultural forces for good in american history. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, david. >> thank you. >> it's great to hear you talk about this new book and to get a sense of your perspective on it all. but, and you said at the beginning of your talk that you started out to write a biography of a book. >> yeah. >> are you satisfied? do you feel like that's, you accomplished what you set out to do? >> yeah. i really feel that way because what happened is that because i've written biographies before of walt whitman and john brown, i kind of knew the technique of writing biography. and it really starts with people. books are produced by people.

and i think that what was very important for me to do was to read joan's biography, to read harriet beecher stowe's letters which are here at the house, the stowe house, to really immerse myself in harriet beecher stowe herself. so, to me, it really -- it started with the idea of a book, but to me it's all about people. t all about finish -- it's all about the person behind the book and what she was doing and what she was writing, what she was experiencing and how everything kind of filtered through her and through her family. she was from a very important family. you could call it the most important family in 19th century america producing henry ward beecher, the most popular preacher in america, isabella

beecher hooker, a suffragist, katherine beecher, leading education reformer. so to me it was so important to locate the book within that human context because, above all, "uncle tom's cabin" to this day remains a human book in the profoundest sense. and et really raid -- it really raises issues of interpersonal relationships. it's a book about relationships between people, between white people, between white people and black people, and it's just such a totally emotional book. and she herself produced it from a very human stand poip. standpoint. so, to me, the book was very much a part of the biography of harriet beecher stowe. >> so you have to tell us which part made you cry. [laughter]

>> well, i hate to admit it, this is very, very corny. extremely corny. but the death of little eva. it kind of worked on me this time. and what was, what was funny is that, i mean, it's like an archetypal 19th century scene, the at the time of this -- the death of this child, right? you could name a number of similar deaths. i think the reason it struck me is that this time it didn't seem sentimental, and for that very -- i mean, i was saying, well, this is a really sentimental scene, and yet her attitude as she approaches death, she's confident of going to the after life. but then she makes it very clear that she would die if millions of enslaved black people could be free, she would just willingly die, and she would just love that. and to me that was extremely

moving. and i don't know why it just struck me. and i won't say i'm going to cry the next time. [laughter] the next time i read the book. nor had i necessarily cried in previous times. because i've taught the book since, i think, 1981. [laughter] and there was absolutely no reason why i should cry that time because it was during the summertime, and i was actually sitting op -- on the beach. gorgeous day. but suddenly i was crying. wow, that was amazing. and i shed another tear over the death of uncle tom which, again, i'm not quite sure why, but it just -- i think part of the reason is that i was writing my book, and part of the inspiration for the book was the death of her beloved young charlie who died of cholera in

1849. and the way she describes this in her letters, it's just so incredibly moving. and i had just been writing about that and connecting it to uncle tom, and i think it was really part of the process of writing the book and reading, reading the novel at the same time. to me, that's what really got my gut. and i think when you read that scene and then connect it up to "uncle tom's cabin" and you think about the death of a child, a beloved child who's so young, and for some reason for her even though she had a number of other children he was a very, very special child to her. and she said at his death bed, i

understood what an enslaved woman can feel when her child is torn away from her. that is what often happened. i mean, that often happened. and the emotionality of it, i think looking back, that's what really caused my response. >> she's good at that emotion stuff. >> yeah. yeah, she is. >> very good. >> she is. not many people -- and what's good is that, um, this is not hallmark card, i'm not offending hallmark card because i give them all the time -- [laughter] but you know what i mean? it's not clicheed emotion, in my view. it's really not. if you read the novel, it's real emotion. et really is. it really is. and it's not hacknnied. so that was my response.

>> so how did she take a book with such powerful emotion which has been called sentimental as if that were a bad thing, um, that feelings were a bad thing, how is a novel with such emotion and such sentiment, how did it change american attitudes? that's a big leap. >> well, i think that it's not a leap because there were so many great novel written during that era; the starlet letter -- scarlet letter, walt whitman's "leaves of grass," but they delight me on a different kind of level. they also move me very, very much. i think because they make me think intellectually and philosophically and so forth. um, people need, the populace

needs emotion to sway it. and, um, there's an ad agency that's now called jwt, it was called john walter thompson. they came along in do 1930s -- in the 1930s and said we had to appropriate the methods of "uncle tom's cabin "to sell our products. why? [laughter] yeah, why? why? because we have to sway the emotions. and you can even see on tv how as tried -- maybe they don't always succeed for you or for me, but they try to sway the emotion in some way. whatever emotion it may be, it could be sentimental, or it could be an exciting emotion, something like that. and she has every kind of emotion in there. she was really the first novelist to bring together both the more sentimental and religious and domestic emotions with the adventure, what we

would call action/add adventure. and she was the first novelist to successfully bring those two things together. which is why her normal was so popular for so long and still resonates today. >> what do you think is different in your book from all of the other reames and reames of literature about stowe and "uncle tom's cabin"? >> well, i think what i do in my book,

>> the way she thought all these images had been in her mind because she'd been writing about them, they kind of came together. and i'm really the first scholar to go back and kind of piece together all those different strands that kind of lead into

"uncle tom's cabin." and then i'm also the first to show the immediate impact and how it filters into political speeches and political debates and pro-slavery and anti-slavery debates and really, really exacerbates those tensions in a very, very specific way that lead to the civil war. and another thing that i do that hasn't been done before is that i examine the very complicated and interesting after life of "uncle tom's cabin." how did uncle tom become a bad guy over time? i kind of explore that. bad guy in the sense of being someone who's just a weak-kneed, obsequious person who's not at all in the novel. and i show a popular cultural transformed him. but how did he also stay alive as an energizing force for

progressive reformers over time? i mentioned langston hughes and w.e.b. duboise, and alec haley, who did "roots "which was the uncle tom's cabin of modern times. he really appreciated "uncle tom's cabin "in a way many other african-americans of the 1960s and '70s did not, and he uses a lot of the same devices in "roots" which it is a kind of sea change in racial attitude. >> up with of the things that really -- one of the things that really struck me as i mentioned in my introduction about your work, about this book was how you demonstrate in a number of ways stowe's, um, what you term stowe's subversive techniques and how, also, then that

permeates through the popular culture in the after life of uncle tom in a subversive way. can you talk about that for the audience a little bit? the. >> right. well, when we read the novel today, perhaps we don't feel its subversiveness as if we lived back in the 1850s. but when it was first published, it created incredible outrage in the south. there's a political cartoon that i reproduce in my book, a picture of hell. and what that hell is, is the america that will be created by "uncle tom's cabin." from the southern point of view. and it shows a black person lording it over everybody in the middle, it shows "uncle tom's cabin "with a book entitled, i love black people.

it showed a picture of a bonfire with devils throwing "uncle tom's cabin" into the bonfire, burning it up. she was really considered a hellish person in the south. very dangerous, very subversive. and i mentioned thomas dixon who comes along, even in the 20th century, and i discuss several other people. even in the -- that was during jim you, jim you -- who are saying this is the worst book ever written, the most dangerous book ever written. a horrible mistake. horrible, horrible, terrible mistake that changed history so much for the worse. why? because it destroyed the old south, and it elevated black people to a position that they shouldn't be in society. because during reconstruction

there was that period when african-americans assumed political offices in certain southern state during radical reconstruction. and so these people in the early 20th century looked back on that horrible period from their point of view, and they attributeed it to "uncle tom's cabin." and that's why dixon writes his race i bestseller -- racist bestseller. and that's why d.w. griffith who was from the south is and his father was a confederate general, that's why he does "birth of a nation." which produces, which portrays black people very repellantly as beasts who are attacking white people. and you need the kkk, the culmination is the kkk rushing to the rescue and saving these

imperilled white people in a cabin who are surrounded by black people who are invading it. and it becomes the most popular film of the silent era. it goes on to earn over $50 million which back then was a tremendous amount of money, and it really, really influences a lot of people. so that's why it was considered subversive. >> and you talk about subversive in the sense of the techniques. you say that she stimulates readers' enthusiastic approval of law breaking. i kind of like that one. and you talk about how stowe uses some of the scenes in "uncle tom's cabin" in the book and also later in the movies where you push against the attitudes of the day. you also talk about sam and andy, two enslaved men who are chasing after e ride sa as she's

getting ready to cross the ice and are kind of baffoons, we read as baffoons. and then the topsy character, of course, you talk about how those, we don't -- the way we read those is not how mid 19th century would have read those. >> she contain characters that even to this very day some people misinterpret as just being laughable minstrel characters. the minstrel show was created by northern white people, many themselves being racists who would blacken their faces and pretend to be african-americans. but they were baffoons. they were silly, they were clowns. it was a very -- in general, it was a racist phenomenon. but very, very popular. harriet beecher stowe imported the minstrel show into her novel through the characters of sam and andy who look like minstrel

show characters, as does topsy. and yet they're not in black face. these are real enslaved black people, and they're engaged in subversive behavior. sam and andy are, they came up with a woman, mrs. shelby, to try to frustrate slave capturers who are trying to capture fugitive slaves. they used minstrel techniques, but they used it forward a sub verse event to try to break the law. the law was the fugitive slave law which demanded that fugitive slaves had to be recaptured. so sam and andy can look like minstrel clowns, but they're not. they're using, they're using minstrel -- or stowe is using minstrel techniques to subvert the law of the land which was

the fugitive slave law. of 1850. and topsy, again, she kind of, she tumbles around, and she's kind of funny, and we laugh at her and all of that. and yet when we think about what she says, she says where were you born, she says, i was never born. who are your parents? i never had parents. and then when she's whipped by aunt ophelia, she says, oh, her whippings are like mosquito bites compared to the real whippings i used to get. but when we think about all of that, we realize how horrible all of that is. like many enslaved blacks, she does know where she came from, she does know who her parents are. she's been whipped, whipped to the extent where she doesn't even feel it anymore.

and so stowe is using these minstrel techniques to subvert them in a sense and to communicate a very, very serious message. >> um, as i was going through your book, i started making a list of all the things that came up as the impact of "uncle tom's cabin." i now have three pages of impact. [laughter] i'm a list person, i can't help it. >> only three? >> sure. that's because i was noting as i went through. so things like the first american novel translated to chinese, that they needed the modern technology of the day to, for it to become the biggest bestseller of the 19th century. the transportation, distribution and machinery systems, that it initiated a new era of cheap lit which are. -- literature. the plays, of course, when stowe landed in this britain, in liver pool in 1853 to visit britain, there were ten versions of

"uncle tom's cabin" on stage in london on the day she landed. >> right. >> imagine that. so i think it's a fascinating, um, summary -- and i don't mean to simplify this -- summary of the impact of that book in so many ways. >> yeah. well, i can't really think of another novel, um, and i love so many novels, and i teach so many novels, and i love them all. but i can't think of another one that had the impact of "uncle tom's cabin." you know, where does one begin? it's now translated into over 70 languages, and every year even now new editions and new languages keep coming out. t just an incredible -- it's just an incredible international phenomenon. again, where do you begin? in russia there were 57 editions

published there. well, first it was banned in russia because it was considered a subversive novel. but then in 1867 it was published and then 57 -- and it was lenin's favorite novel. and it directly influenced the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, and it lay behind the russian revolution. it was one of the influences behind the russian revolution. um, anyway, as i say, the play went kind of everywhere. in america there are so many different versions of the play in america. the play was played in chicago in jewish, and instead of the bible, the tall mutt was being read on stage. so it became an instantly kind of adaptable play. there was even a roman catholic version of the play even though

harriet beecher stowe happened to be a protestant. she was a protestant, but in the catholic version in italy, at first it was banned in italy because t a protestant novel. but then they did -- [laughter] they did a little bit of tinkering, and then there was one that was approved by the pope that had a lot about the immaculate conception. [laughter] so it's such a malleable novel. and in paris you could go and, um, pie uncle tom's -- buy uncle tom's candy, and there were five restaurant items in paris that were named after uncle tom's characters. if you read my book, you'll get a little bit of a taste of the impact. [laughter] >> there's a subway station in berlin called uncle tom's cabin. today. [laughter] so, david, what do your

contemporary students think about this book? you've been teaching it since 1981. >> you know, it's very, very funny, but i don't know if it's true with joan and with the other professors in the audience and anyone, but i think partly it is because of feminist scholars, women scholars, but in the last, um, 30 years there really has been an increasing interest and respect for the novel. there really has been. and we no longer have to read the so-called dead white male. we can still read them and appreciate them and love them, but we can also read heavier yet beecher stowe -- harriet beecher stowe, and we can read slave narratives, and we can appreciate them. and so my students, and maybe it's partly under my own guidance, in general really,

really love the novel. and i increasingly really love the novel. um, i will admit when i first read it, and i'm trying to think when i first read it. i think it was back in college. i'm not going to say when, when it was. [laughter] anyway, it was a while ago. i found it a little bit old-fashioned. but i think that's the way it was taught back then. it was taught in a certain derogatory way. i really feel, and one's professor somehow kind of guides one's reaction to it. but nowadayses my students really -- nowadayses my student really enjoy the novel. they really love it. it's a little bit on the long side, so you have to give it a few days or sometimes weeks. but i will swear if you read it, and don't just read it once. maybe read it once and kind of put aside your first reaction,

then come back to it again and, hopefully, read my book because i think the reason i cried is because i was writing my book at the same time. and i think that you'll understand the full picture, it'll help even make it more moving for you. >> well, now we'd like to give you an opportunity to ask a few questions. i have the microphone you'll be using, and we're using a mic, of course, because c-span is taping tonight for a later broadcast. i do want to let you all know that we're going to be, the stowe center is rereleasing "uncle tom's cabin" chapter by chapter as it came out as the serial publication in the national era originally, and that start on june 5th, 160 year after the actual day. so check our web site for that information. and you can participate on june 14th/15th with a 24-hour reading of "uncle tom's cabin" with us.

so check that out and sign up. 3 a.m. is taken, but 3:10 is not. [laughter] so, now, who would like to ask a question or make a comment? charles? >> david, the, um, caricature or the use of uncle tom as a phrase for someone that was not like the character in the book, what was the force that kind of brought that about and kind of when did that happen? since the publication of the book? >> the negative usage of uncle tom arose principally during the jim crow era. and it was largely because of the -- some of the stage representations. in many of them, he was