Harriet Beecher Stowe (review)

BOOK REVIEWS87 placed upon the motives of Congress, particularly in view of the author's final conclusions. The United States and the African Slave Trade, 1619-1862 is a rather thin, synthetic survey of the American participation in, and response to, the slave trade from the earliest arrival of Negro servants in Virginia Colony to the Civil War. The authors' purpose was to "show that the slave trade was an important economic and cultural factor in the formative days of the United States, and that the slave trade profoundly affected the relations of the United States with the powers of Europe." Unfortunately , it does not altogether succeed in treating the trade and its international ramifications in sufficient depth to be satisfying. Some readers may take strong exception to the implied defense of the American experience with slavery and the slave trade found in the last part of the book. If such active research into the history of the slave trade continues, it is possible that in some of New England's finest homes there may be a rattling of skeletons in closets and attics that may prove embarrassing to the living descendants of the slave traders. L. E. Gelfand University of Iowa Harriet Beecher Stowe. By John R. Adams. (New York: Twayne Publishers , Inc., 1963. Pp. 172. $3.50.) Written for a series on American authors, this work is concerned with Harriet Beecher Stowe's writings rather than with her life or the legend which grew up around it. Professor Adams rejects the theory that Uncle Tom's Cabin was motivated by a deep desire to strike at slavery, and maintains instead that it was basically a personal declaration of independence . Its message of opposition to subservience, of consolation to frustrated humanity, and assertion of individual rights was a reaction to the unhappiness and repression in her own life. Produced from the depths of experience, timed with the mass reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law, and written with the skill of a gifted storyteller, the book had an immediate and unexpected reception throughout the United States. Mrs. Stowe published many of her writings in magazines or journals and Uncle Tom's Cabin was no exception. Serialized in Gamaliel Bailey's National Era, it complemented the material in that moderate reform newspaper. Indeed, many of the ideas used in the novel came from the pages of the paper which first published it. Other journals and editors also welcomed the contributions of Mrs. Stowe, whose prolific pen produced stories and articles with a conventionally moralistic flavor and a religious message. Her subjects ranged from colorful travel accounts to a criticism of Lord Byron's personal affairs, and the quality of her writing varied according to the demands of her editors. By careful study of the entirety of Mrs. Stowe's writing Professor 88CIVIL WAR HISTORY Adams has given a new perspective on her place in the world of letters. The result is not flattering. Without Uncle Tom's Cabin she would be only one of a number of minor women writers providing material for the popular religious and sentimental journals of her time. The dull, lackluster nature of her other works contrasts sharply with the dramatic impact of her great antislavery novel. Even when writing about slavery, Mrs. Stowe never approached the achievement of her first novel. Perhaps the extra ingredient in Uncle Tom's Cabin was indeed, as Professor Adams maintains, the author's personal manifesto of freedom. Larry Gara Wilmington College Lincoln's Boyhood: A Chronicle of His Indiana Years. By Francis Marion Van Natter. (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1963. Pp. vi, 224. $4.50.) This volume is a disaster. "The twofold purpose of this book," the author explains, "is to present the story of Abraham Lincoln's early everyday life and to trace the influence of that early period upon his White House behavior." The result is neither history nor fiction. The author, now deceased, performed a labor of diligence but not of academic discipline; his book has the form but not the spirit of scholarship. A vast array of Lincoln lore passes in review for the reader, but often in disarray, as it were, with company commanders missing...