Uncle Tom's Cabin Transforms Northern Public Opinion

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is published in book form on March 20, 1852, after serialization in an abolitionist paper. It sells 300,000 copies in its first year. The novel makes the humanity of enslaved people vivid to millions of Northern readers who had been indifferent. Southern states ban it. Black readers criticize Stowe's paternalism but recognize its political impact.