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M [168] From “International Copyright” (1867) James Parton There is an American lady living at Hartford, in Connecticut, whom the United States has permitted to be robbed by foreigners of $200,000. Her name is Harriet Beecher Stowe. By no disloyal act has she or her family forfeited their right to the protection of the government of the United States. She pays her taxes, keeps the peace, and earns her livelihood by honest industry; she has reared children for the service of the Commonwealth; she Born in England, James Parton (1822–1891) was a journalist and writer who became one of the most popular biographers of nineteenth-century America with his studies of Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, and Benjamin Franklin. Parton was also the third husband of Fanny Fern, whom he married in 1856. While his famous wife wrote weekly columns exclusively for the New York Ledger, Parton wrote for a number of influential periodicals, including the Atlantic Monthly. He was deeply absorbed in one of the most pressing issues of the day for writers—the lack of an international copyright. In the absence of such laws, writers had no control over foreign editions of their works, nor did they receive any share in the profits from international sales unless they went to a country and personally applied for a copyright, as Stowe did when she traveled to England to establish copyright for Dred (1856). Further, American writers had no control over dramatic performances of their works, since domestic copyright laws did not protect works of fiction from being adapted for the stage. Versions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin were the most popular performances in the United States throughout most of the nineteenth century, but Stowe derived no profits from them. After Parton’s “International Copyright” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1867, Stowe wrote to thank him for his efforts on behalf of writers.1 In so doing, she revived her friendship with Fern and enjoyed a lively correspondence with the couple for many years. In the following excerpt from his article, Parton uses Stowe as his major example of the ways in which the inadequate copyright laws harm American writers. James Parton [169] was warm and active for her country when many around her were cold or hostile;—in a word, she is a good citizen. More than that: she is an illustrious citizen. The United States stands higher to-day in the regard of every civilized being in Christendom because she lives in the United States. She is the only woman yet produced on the continent of America to whom the world assigns equal rank in literature with the great authoresses of Europe. If, in addition to the admirable talents with which she is endowed, she had chanced to possess one more, namely, the excellent gift of plodding, she had been a consummate artist, and had produced immortal works. All else she has;—the seeing eye, the discriminating intelligence, the sympathetic mind, the fluent word, the sure and happy touch; and these gifts enabled her to render her country the precise service which it needed most. Others talked about slavery: she made us see it. She showed it to us in its fairest and in its foulest aspect; she revealed its average and ordinary working. There never was a fairer nor a James Parton, 1869. Photographer/creator: Gurney and Son, Fifth Avenue, New York, copyright unknown. Fanny Fern and Ethel Parton Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. stowe in her own time [170] kinder book than Uncle Tom’s Cabin; for the entire odium of the revelation fell upon the Thing, not upon the unhappy mortals who were born and reared under its shadow. The reader felt that Legree was not less, but far more the victim of slavery than Uncle Tom, and the effect of the book was to concentrate wrath upon the system which tortured the slave’s body and damned the master’s soul. Wonderful magic of genius! The hovels and cottonfields which this authoress scarcely saw she made all the world see, and see more vividly and more truly than the busy world can ever see remote objects with its own unassisted eyes. We are very dull and stupid in what does not immediately concern us, until we are roused and enlightened by such as she. Those whom we call “the intelligent,” or “the educated,” are merely the one in ten of the human family who by some...

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