[applause] >> thank you, david. 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. ..

harriet beecher stowe herself, it started with the idea of a book but to me it is all about people. and what she was doing and what she with experiencing and everything filtered through her friend and family. the most important family in nineteenth century america. it helped -- it was so important

to put it in that context but above all "uncle tom's cabin" is a human book. it raises issues of interpersonal relationships. between white people and black people. to me the biography of harriet beecher stowe. >> you have to tell us which part made you cry. >> i hate to admit it. very poignant.

the death of little eva. like an archetype of the nineteenth century seen. to name a number of similar deaths. it struck me because it was sentimental and i was saying this is a similar scene and yet going to the afterlife that makes it very clear he was dying with millions of enslaved black people who were free and i don't know why it struck me. won't say i will cry the next time i read the book nor have i

necessarily -- there was absolutely no reason because in the summertime -- a gorgeous day and suddenly i was crying. it was amazing. and another one over the death of uncle tom. i am not sure why but part of the reason i was writing the book and part of the inspiration for the book was the death of the beloved young charlie who died of cholera in 1841. the way she describes it was

incredibly moving. i was writing about that and connecting it and it is part of the process of writing the book and reading the novel, that really got my guts and that scene when it connected up, you think about the death of a child, a beloved child and for some reason the motion you have and a number of other children, a very special child. she said at his deathbed understood what enslaved women feel when the child is torn away from her as often happened.

the emotion of it looking back -- she is -- [talking over each other] >> this is not a hallmark card. i give them all the time. it is not emotion. if you read the novel is real emotion. is not happening. that was my response. >> how did you take a book with such powerful e motion which has

been called sentiment, that feelings are a bad thing. how is a novel with such emotion and sentiment change american attitude? that is a big leap. >> it is not a leap because there were so many great novels written during that era. the scarlet letter, moby dick. they delight me on a different level. they moved me very much because they make me think intellectually and philosophically. the populace needs emotion to sway it. the ad agency that came along in

the 18 -- 1930s had to appropriate the method of "uncle tom's cabin" to sell a product. why? why? we have to sway the emotions and you can even see on tv, they don't always succeed for you or for me but they try to sway the motion in some way. whatever the emotion may be. it might be fear or exciting emotion. she has every kind of emotion. the first novelist to bring together the more sentimental and religious and domestic emotions with action-adventure. she was the first novelist to successfully bring those things

together which is why her novel was so popular for so long and still resonates today. >> what do you think is different in your book from all of the other reams of literature about stowe and "uncle tom's cabin"? >> what i do in my book, when i do my research i appreciate those critics who said i find a book on wall whitman's something brand new yet there are hundreds of books on wall mid when -- walt whitman and people are saying the same thing on this book. the way i'd do research is try to read everything. i read all of the letters, i read everything about her. of a secondary works. more than that i went back to

early newspapers that she wrote before reading up on "uncle tom's cabin". she had written so many works before that in popular newspapers and i went back there and took the time to read them and i said goodness gracious, the youth of the building blocks of "uncle tom's cabin" so that when the fugitive slave law was passed she becomes totally enraged. all these images had been in her mind because she had been writing about them and they came together. i am first caller to go back and piece together those different strands that lead into "uncle tom's cabin". i am also the first to show the immediate impact of how it

filters into political debates both pro slavery and and are slavery and exacerbate those tensions in a specific way that leads to the civil war. another thing i do that hasn't been done before is i examined the complicated and interesting afterlife of "uncle tom's cabin". how did uncle tom become the bad guy? i explore that. the sense of being a week need obsequious person he is not at all in the novel. i show how popular culture transformed him. how did he also stay alive as an energizing force of the progress of reforms? i mentioned langston hughes and w. e. b. du bois and alex haley

who did routes which was the uncle tom's cabin of modern time. he appreciated "uncle tom's cabin" in a way that many other african-americans of the 1960s and 70s did not. used the same devices in routes which creates a >> and popular culture and racial attitude. >> one thing that struck me as i mentioned in my introduction about your work about this book was howard you demonstrate in a number of ways stowe's subversive techniques and how also through popular culture and the afterlife of uncle tom in a subversive way. talk about that for the

audience. >> when we read the novel today perhaps we don't feel it's subversiveness as much as if we lived in the 1850s but when it was first published it created outrage in the south. there's a political cartoon reproduced in the book, a picture of hell. what that hell is is the america that will be created by "uncle tom's cabin". from the southern point of view it shows a black person lording over everybody and it shows uncle tom's cabin with the book entitled i love black people. it showed a picture of the bonfire with devils furrowing "uncle tom's cabin" into the bonfire and burning it up.

she was considered a hellish person in the south. very dangerous and very subversive. i mentioned thomas dixon who comes along in the 20th century and discussed several other people. that was during jim crow. they perce in this is the worst book ever written. it changed history so much for the worse. why? it destroyed the old south and elevated black people -- when african-americans assumed political office in certain

southern states during radical reconstruction so these people in the early 20th-century looked back on a horrible period from their point of view and attributed it to "uncle tom's cabin". that is wide dixon rights is racist bestsellers and griffith who is from the south and his father was a confederate general does birth of the nation which portrays black people repellant late as beasts. you need the kkk rushing to the rescue and saving these imperil white people in a cabin surrounded by black people who are invading it and it becomes

the most popular film of the silent era and goes on to earn $50 million which was a tremendous amount of money. it really influence the lot of people. that is why it was considered subversive. >> you talk about the techniques that she stimulates readers enthusiastic approval of lawbreaking and you talk about our stowe uses some of the scenes in "uncle tom's cabin" and in the movie when material pushes against the accepted attitude of the day. you talk about tom and eva and sam and andy who are chasing after elijah and she is ready to cross the ice and our buffoons

and the autopsy character. the way we read those is not how nineteenth century people would. >> shea contains characters whose of the full misinterpret as laughable minstrel characters. the minstrel show was created by northern white people many of themselves being racist who would blackened their faces and pretend to be african-americans. they were silly. they were clowns. it was a racist phenomenon but very popular. harriet beecher stowe and forced the minstrel show into her novel to the characters of sam and andy who looked like minstrel show characters and yet they are not in black face. these are real enslaved black

people who were in engage in subversive behavior. sam and andy team up with mrs. shelby to frustrate slave catchers who are trying to capture fugitive slaves. they use minstrel techniques toward a subversive end to break the law. the law was the fugitive slave law which demanded fugitive slaves had to be recaptured so sam and andy can look like ms. minstrel clowns the were not. they were -- stowe was using minstrel techniques to s the law of th autopsy her weapoe

a mosquito bite compared to the real chippings we use to get but when we think of that we realize how horrible all of that is. she doesn't know where she came from. she doesn't know her parents are. she doesn't even feel it anymore. stowe is using these minstrel techniques to subvert them into

communicating a very serious message. >> 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 have three pages. >> only three? >> i was noting as i went through things like the first american novel translated to chinese that they needed modern technology of the day for it to become the biggest bestseller of the nineteenth century. transportation, distribution and machinery systems that it initiated a new era of cheap literature. the plays when stowe landed in britain in liverpool in 1853 to visit britain for server ten versions of "uncle tom's cabin" on stage in london on the day she landed. imagine that.

it is a fascinating summary. i don't mean to simplify the summary of that book in so many ways. >> i can't think of another novel and i love so many novels and teach so many novels but i can't think of another one with the impact of "uncle tom's cabin". where does one begin? it is translated into over 70 languages and even now new additions and new languages keep coming out. it is an international phenomenon. where do you begin? in russia there were 57 editions. it was banned in russia because it was considered a subversive

novel but in 1857 it was lenin's favorite novel and directly influenced emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and behind the russian revolution was one of the influences on the russian revolution. anyway. the play went everywhere. there were so many different versions of the play. it was played in chicago and instead of the bible the talmud was being read on stage. it became an adaptable play. there was even a roman catholic version of the play. 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 it is a protestant novel. they did a little bit of tinkering and one was approved by the pope that had a lot about the immaculate conception. such a malleable novel and in paris you could buy a uncle tom's candy. there were restaurant items named after uncle tom characters. if you read my book you will get a taste of the impact. >> there is a subway station in berlin called uncle tom's kevin today. what do your contemporary students think of this book? teaching it since 1981. >> it is very funny but i don't know if it is true with the

other professors in the audience. partly it is because of feminist scholars but in the last 30 years there has been increasing interest in the spectrum novel. there really hasn't. we no longer have to relieve -- read the dead white male. we can appreciate and love them but we can also read harriet beecher stowe and we can read slave narrative that we can appreciate them. it is partly under my own guidance, in general really love the novel and i increasingly really love the novel. when i first read it i am trying to think when i first read it

was back in college. it was a while ago. -owned it a little old-fashioned but that is the way it was talked back then. it was talked in a derogatory way. the professor guide's one reaction to it. nowadays my students really enjoy the novel. they love it. like many nineteenth century novels it is a little on the long side so you have to give it a few days or weeks but i will swear if you don't read it. don't just read it once. put aside your first reaction. come back to again and hopefully read my book. the reason i cried is i was writing my book at the same

time. if you understand the whole picture it will help make it more moving. >> we would like to give you an opportunity to ask a few questions. i have the microphone and you will be using and we are using a microphone because c-span is taping for a later broadcast. i want to let you know we will be -- the stowe center is rereleasing "uncle tom's cabin" chapter by chapter as it came out as a serial publication in the national hero originally and that starts on june fifth, 1 sixty years after the actual day. check our web site for that information and you can participate on june 14th-15 with a 24-hour reading of "uncle tom's cabin". check that and sign up at 3:00 a.m.. three:10 is not.

so now who would like to ask a question or make a comment? charles? >> the character or the use of uncle tom has are phrase for someone who was not like the character in the book what was the force that brought that about and when did that happen since the publication of the book? >> the negative usage of uncle tom rose principally during the jim crow era largely because some of the representation -- in many of them he was a feeble old man who hauled on stage and said yes master and that sort of thing and the whipping of uncle

tom during that era in some productions became a really violent act. this was the time when hundreds and thousands of people would show up to see an african-american person lynch in the south. there is a vicarious pleasure in seeing him whipped to death even though he was portrayed as old and frail. and also there are rows the new negro movement, and a angrier kind of militant african american, richard wright wrote uncle tom's children and there was a backlash against the misconception as there was a misconception of uncle tom,

against that sunni part of the naturalistic writers who had a darker view, and in rear view. more militant view of the way african-americans should rebel against culture and they rejected the more non-violent view associated with uncle tom. james baldwin comes along in 1949 and represents the novel, calling it a very bad novel. everybody's protest novel. the real subversive dangerous nature, just turns it into a sentimental thing that denies humanity. to me it is the opposite. doesn't deny humanity at all but affirms humanity. langston hughes was very angry

at james baldwin because of that as a. by that time uncle tom had ended the vocabulary as a spineless coward the obsequious person. >> harriet beecher stowe wrote a uncle tom -- "uncle tom's cabin" -- there is a little store called uncle tom's market. if you ever go to maine it is there and i am sure people are surprised when they see it because that is where she wrote the book. >> joan and i and a bunch of others will be there for the 200th anniversary in june. i will stop by for sure.

>> i wonder if you can give a brief time line so we have more of a context when she wrote the book when other things happened like a fugitive act or the dread scott decision when john brown -- and so forth. >> what happened was the fugitive slave law was passed which was a proslavery law. when slaves come to the north if you don't capture them and helped return them to the south you could go to jail. and paid $1,000 fine which was a lot of money back then and it could be bad for you. she got really mad about that. her sister in law says you know how to write.

why don't you go back and write a novel? i am going to. and she did. but then what happened was a series of other laws after that. the kansas nebraska act opens the western territories to slavery. bid read scott decision which says african-americans can never be citizens of the united states. they have no rights whatsoever. she got not just angry but she became very bitter. when she wrote another anti slavery in all 4 appears a little waiter it is about a slave rebel who is the son of denmark may see who led a slave rebellion.

even though he dies before he can launch a slave rebellion he still express's growing bitterness. what was happening was slavery is becoming more deeply entrenched. she had written a uncle tom's capt. to prevent that but unfortunately it made slavery more entrenched because it made the south more defensive even as it turned the north toward anti slavery. it had this effect and she became more better and kept sending petitions to politicians and send her novel and was good friends of many anti slavery politicians. it was really a division. when john brown comes along even

though she created the gentle and uncle tom she calls john brown the greatest american that has ever lived. she was like four former pacifist. henry david sorrow who wrote his essay called civil disobedience which influenced martin luther king and gondi but he says john brown is greater than any of the founding fathers and harriet beecher stowe says no man ever lived who has done more for the honor of the american man that john brown. she knew about his violence in kansas and harpers ferry but she knew the sad truth that holy violence was going to end

slavery. it took the death of 620,000 americans to end slavery. that is how deeply entrenched slavery had become in america. sadly she came to realize that. she realized the a uncle tom approach as attractive as it was and effective as it became for martin luther king and rosa parks she could not predict that. but at that moment violence was needed to get rid of slavery and she came to admit that. >> a little while before you said "uncle tom's cabin" was suffering humanity and human and the novel dread which was a more

violent aspect. you could say over the long run it was the affirming humanity that won out even if it took the violence to catalyze or create the immediate change. for me particularly reading "uncle tom's cabin" it is the humanization of the slaves, of uncle tom crossing the river -- eliza -- compounded the injustice with the affirmative parts of their personalities that created the real power. i get your point about her

realizing it might take violence but when you step back 100 years and look at it you realize the stronger power of the affirmative affirmation of humanity. >> hi am an eternal optimist. i happen to be a pacifist myself. what is unusual about "uncle tom's cabin" is there are not many novels you can read that are both powerful and very dramatic and very exciting and sensational like when uncle tom gets whipped and yet they are affirmative. so many characters are good

people. even a few of the slave holders are fundamentally good people ironically enough and that is what is great about the novel. she doesn't demonize even all the slaveholders. the subtlety in her portrayal and characterization she does look for the good. i am a cockeyed optimist who believes in human goodness. maybe i have read too much ralph waldo emerson or something. i was raised as a christian scientist so maybe that is it. i like to see the good in people and to me that is another appealing thing about her. there are very few characters. some of them like a slave

catcher -- simon legree is a perverse character. there are certain characters who are definitely bad guys but what i love about the novel is you can read it and feel uplifted. i don't like war movies or bloody movies. i like uplifting movies. i like "uncle tom's cabin" because for me it uplifts me. ultimately goodness -- someone like rosa parks and martin luther king does win. those people do win in the end. maybe i am a blind eye optimist. i stand on the side of hope and

goodness with goodness being victorious. what can i say? by the time she wrote dread in 1856 she was a little more bitter. she had real difficulty creating a moral goodness in any single character. i love dread. it is a great novel. it is wonderful in its own way but it doesn't really moved me and doesn't inspire me with a sense of hope the way "uncle tom's cabin" does. thank you for bringing that up. >> i just wanted to know. i don't know how far your biography goes. if you encountered this stage

play i ate your uncle which is good fortune -- about 15 years that critiques "uncle tom's cabin". actually should have been targeted as a stage play rather than the novel was my ultimate idea that they were -- their brochure listed the stage productions and things and i wondered if you encountered it. >> i ate your uncle comes out first in the late 1980s or the 1990s which is really great. you can say all kinds of things about that but there are all

these answers to katherine kane 11. it is not radical but very forceful critique of the uncle tom stereotyped and autopsy becomes a subversive character. the evolution of autopsy becomes -- topsy, in modern pop rebellious black girl, street smart girl rebelling against conventional culture. so many characters in the novel become transformed over time and things that bounce off of "uncle

tom's cabin". that is one of the more interesting responses to "uncle tom's cabin" but very much responding to some of the distortions along the way which is very understandable. [inaudible] >> a play by robert alexander in 1995, one of the most interesting things about "uncle tom's cabin" is the way it is a touchstone for modern life. i got a notice for "uncle tom's cabin" and zombies. it is being tried as a reading in washington d.c.. we will see what happens there.

always another opportunity. >> i have a lot of things about the twentieth century. it goes everywhere. walt disney cartoons based on it and tex avery cartoons based on it. so many advertisings so if you read my book you will see all of that. >> going back to the cartoon you mentioned in which one of the lines was we love black people what was the period of that cartoon and what was the language of the time? >> that was a political cartoon from the 1850s. it is reproduced in my book. it was a southern political

cartoon. it really wanted to show the hole that "uncle tom's cabin" was going to create if people took it seriously. i love black people. that was the new title of the novel if you take a magnifying glass. that was the view of the south. it was a southern political cartoon. >> the language they use we love black people? >> yes. it is precisely -- i love blacks. >> i do believe the true self of human beings is to be good. is not an unreasonable expectation. i would like to revisit the

gentleman's question about the usage of the phrase uncle tom in a negative way. it still happens today where as human beings we are sensitive. we rush to judgment because we are human beings. it reminds me for example when there was a beer company, a straightjacket for valentine one year and i wanted one. the controversy was people who were bipolar, was an insult. i felt differently. i feel more expansive about it but they stopped producing them. another example is malcolm x. many people not doing research

or studying his life still think he was a radical crazy person who hated all white people and he changed that. effect that being uncle tom -- i heard that in college. it was negative. it wasn't based on the book but everyone believes that. i want to make that point. bringing harriet beecher stowe back to the present i have to hope she didn't feel you have to have violence and death to stop slavery because human beings when public opinion changes are capable of doing human revolution at some point and we shouldn't expect there has to be death and violence.

we should expect that. the truth is slavery has not ended. it has gone underground with human trafficking and so many things you can put in that box. i hope if harriet beecher stowe were here today she would be working on these other issues of what is going on under the current and talking in public and signing contracts. >> we talked about "uncle tom's cabin" and dread. what other writings did she have? what were the themes and issues she had in those ridings?

>> she didn't return to the slavery issue. after dread too much except petitions and try to help the republican party and abraham lincoln because it was a little dizzying. the response to "uncle tom's cabin". she even received that year of an enslaved black person that had been cut off. it was opened by her husband in the mail from a southerner. such a violent reaction. she did right bread and did her best for the anti slavery cause but after that she writes 30 novels.

many are very good novels but mainly about her new england teams and new england history, local colors. some our children's stories. most of them -- she wrote about lady byron. she wrote on some controversial issues and tried to help black people. when she moved to florida for the winter she helped to found with her husband calvin a school that was semi integrated, close to being integrated with one room for white children and one for blacks. she remains a hero among

african-americans but she takes practical steps but shies away from that kind of thing and tries to focus on new england history and manners and does a marvelous job. >> was kevin her first book? >> her first novel. she had written magazine pieces before that. >> we are going to wrap up now. thank you. i want to thank you for coming tonight and recognize that we're joined by joan hetrick who is stowe's biographer and other friends and scholars and historians. thank you for being here. be sure to spend a few minutes and get your copy of david

reynolds's new book "mightier than the sword" and 3 read "uncle tom's cabin" or read it for the first time and find out why it is a book that still resonates in the united states of america today. we appreciate having you. [applause] >> for more information about this book is that www.norton.com and surge "mightier than the sword". >> khalid sheikh mohammad is 4-year-old. i searched for the death records. his father died in 1969. they didn't keep records of resident foreigners. it wasn't interesting to them. we have this account of his father's death. no official transcript to back

it up. his father dies and there's no welfare state. no organized charity. so his mother take the job washing of the bodies of the dead preparing them for burial. very low status low income job but enables her to become a living. she has nine children. years pass on and, the sheik is doing well. some what book is boy and the family decides -- they have no money at all. they need to back one son to get an education and that one son is typical in arab families at this time would support the rest of

them. ultimately he applies to school in north carolina and historically baptist school in north carolina. either the family save some money or more likely the muslim brotherhood of kuwait agreed to sponsor him. he joined the muslim brotherhood after his two older brothers joined so he arrives in america at roughly 18 years old and is unprepared for what he sees. i interviewed the man who picked him up at the airport at virginia beach and what he remembers, being surprised by what he saw. he was surprised by the geography, the intent 3. trees in kuwait are behind walls and privately-owned. here there were trees

everywhere. more surprising and strange and off-putting than the trees were the people and what they were doing. they were sitting in lawn chairs on their front lawn visible from the road. they were playing with their kids, taking a hose to the bushes outside the front window. what surprised him was so much of american family life happening in public. this is not what would happen in the arab world. the more time he spent in north carolina the more he was persuaded americans were really backwards. they did things that should be private in public. they trusted each other very quickly and they didn't go out at night. after dark is when most social occasions happening kuwait but in the united states in 1983 and

'84, there was one pizza parlor. no bars. it closed at 9:00. the town was asleep. far from the night being alive and social and friendly it was as silent as a tune. it was the day when americans were busy. he became more and more alienated by america because it wasn't an arab country. these things by themselves do not make him a terrorist but it sets him at odds with the country. nothing other than attending chapel service made him part of the large community. one of the things i learned in writing "mastermind" was there was nothing or civilian colleges due to integrate foreign students and explain this country to them. we take for granted everyone knows these things. when the fbi searched the car of

the 9/11 hijackers they found a small spiral bound notebook and careful arabic script there was a description explaining the difference between shampoo, conditioner and body wash. we think they are easily understood but from another culture and another time it was puzzling. maybe an explanation is in order for foreign students. he spent most of his time in college not just with other arab students but other kuwaiti arab students. he didn't mix with the non kuwaiti arabs. he transferred to north carolina, jesse jackson's alma mater. he studies engineering but his social network is limited. 15 or 20 people all of whom are muslim, some transferred with

him but he emergeds as a mullah. what they mean is an enforcer. he makes sure other students don't violate these small obscure tenets of what they believe to be islamic law. the cuff of your pants can never cover your ankle. it is forbidden to wear shorts because they expose the knee and stalin. when they go to the gym and work out they are fully covered. and forcing these differences kept them apart from the american college campus. i met a dozen american people who went to college with him and remember him. he was a member of a student trip where he put on plays and

skits successfully and humorously imitate arab leaders but his audience was 20 arab students. i couldn't find anyone who wasn't the kuwaiti arab who was a muslim who knew him well in school. his lab partner remembers him as a person with broken english. his professors remember him being good at math and science but never had a substantive conversation with him about anything that didn't involve molecule's and formulas. he was in north carolina four years but came into contact with americans on a very glancing basis. as if you are changing planes in a strange city and walk through the airport. have you met the people of cincinnati? not really. you pass by tm.