Lady Byron Vindicated

The publication of Stowe's most famous book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is considered a major factor in the escalation of the slavery debate during the mid-1800's. The book was based on slave accounts she had read, ex-slaves she had interviewed, and a Kentucky plantation she visited while living in Cincinnati. It was a scathing work of social and moral commentary, and steeled many formerly moderate anti-slavery proponents against the South, turning them into radicals almost overnight. Each work of writing she produced-from her many contributions to abolitionist magazines to her socially conscious short stories to her polemic novels-was an attack against slavery and against those who supported slavery and its economic system. The woman who called the greatest event in her life the abolition of slavery was often just writing to pay the bills, considering her life's calling a business rather than art.