Perilous Escape of Eliza and Child
Perilous Escape of Eliza and Child
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- Description
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe was published in 1852, quickly becoming the nation’s bestselling book. It features a spirited, religious-minded enslaved black man named Tom, who is sold downriver by his financially-strapped owner in Kentucky to a plantation in Louisiana. There, his Christian beliefs spread hope to his fellow slaves and enable him to endure the harsh beatings of his cruel master. He is ultimately whipped to death after refusing to reveal the location of two runaway slaves. Published after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, the novel targeted Northern audiences, arguing against the injustice of slavery and spurring the abolition movement into action.
- Although the bestselling novel of the 19th century, many American were exposed to Uncle Tom’s Cabin through play adaptations known as Tom shows. The immense popularity of both the novel and plays transformed Uncle Tom into a cultural phenomenon in America and Europe, and manufacturers quickly capitalized on the production of “Tomitudes,” everyday commodities that referenced scenes and characters from the novel. These included card games, jigsaw puzzles, chinaware, jars and vases, snuffboxes, ceramic figurines, and decorative prints. Although some of these Tomitudes employed racial stereotypes and the imagery of blackface minstrelsy, most chose to depict the enslaved characters of Beecher’s novel in a sympathetic light, often carrying an anti-slavery message.
- In the novel, Tom’s owner in Kentucky, Arthur Shelby decides to sell two of his slaves, Tom and the child Harry, the young son of another slave named Eliza. In order to keep her son, Eliza determines to escape into the North across the Ohio River. Depicting Eliza’s dramatic flight from Chapter 7 of the novel, this print around 1853 presents the slave woman crossing the River in the winter, desperately leaping across ice floes, her son clutched in her arms. As Eliza steps forward, she turns her head back in the direction of Mr. Shelby, who has pursued her to the river’s bank. After her escape, Eliza is joined by her husband George, who is also on the run, and with the aid of sympathetic Northern Quakers, the trio escapes into Canada. In the novel, Harry is described as a young child of mixed race at about 4 or 5 years of age. Strong depicts him more as a child of 2 or 3 being carried though perhaps that was a deliberate infernce that the child was small due to malnutrition?
- Thomas W. Strong was a New York-based printer and wood engraver who began his career around 1840. His shop specialized in comic literature and he employed many talented cartoonists and draftsmen who would go on to work for Harper’s Weekly and Vanity Fair. This print was the first in a series by Strong of scenes from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
- Abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) rose to fame in 1851 with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which highlighted the evils of slavery, angered the slaveholding South, and inspired pro-slavery copy-cat works in defense of the institution of slavery. Stowe’s father was the famed Congregational minister Lyman Beecher and her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, was also a famous preacher and reformer. In 1824, she attended her sister Catherine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary, which exposed young women to many of the same courses available in men’s academies. Stowe became a teacher, working from 1829 to 1832 at the Seminary.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote numerous articles, some of which were published in the renowned women’s magazine of the times, Godey’s Lady’s Book. She also wrote 30 books, covering a wide range of topics from homemaking to religion, as well as several novels. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which legally compelled Northerners to return runaway slaves, infuriated Stowe, and many in the North. She subsequently authored her most famous work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Originally serialized in the National Era, Stowe saw her tale as a call to arms for Northerners to defy the Fugitive Slave Act. It was released as a book in 1852 and later performed on stage and translated into dozens of languages. Stowe used her fame to petition to end slavery. She toured nationally and internationally, speaking about her book, and donating some of what she earned to help the antislavery cause.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- Lithograph
- Object Type
- Lithograph
- date made
- ca 1853
- originator of scene
- Stowe, Harriet Beecher
- maker
- Strong, Thomas W.
- place made
- United States: New York, New York City
- Physical Description
- paper (overall material)
- ink (overall material)
- Measurements
- image: 12 in x 9 in; 30.48 cm x 22.86 cm
- overall: 16 in x 11 in; 40.64 cm x 27.94 cm
- ID Number
- DL.60.2373
- catalog number
- 60.2373
- accession number
- 228146
- Credit Line
- Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
- subject
- Reform Movements
- Children
- Blacks
- African American
- Civil War
- Slavery
- Civil War
- See more items in
- Cultural and Community Life: Domestic Life
- Domestic Furnishings
- Art
- American Civil War Prints
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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