Though much of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written in Brunswick, Maine, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s inspiration came from listening to stories told by fugitve slaves escaping via the Underground Railroad while living in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1850 her husband, Calvin Stowe, accepted a position at Bowdoin College and relocated to Maine. It would be the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 that would prompt her to write.

Originally Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly was a forty week serial in the abolitionist periodical National Era.   The series was very popular among readers. John P. Jewett, of the publishing company John P. Jewett and Co., requested Stowe’s permission to publish the series as a book. The first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin contained six full page engraving illustrations by Hammit Billings, an expense Jewett was willing to make since he was convinced the book would be popular. The series, now a novel, was published on March 20, 1852 and within a short time was completely sold out. Within the first year of publication, Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold over 300,000 copies and would eventually be translated into every major language.

Allegedly, while Stowe was visiting Washington, D.C. in 1863, upon meeting Stowe, Lincoln said to her, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War!”

Photo: Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-1896. Creator unknown, ca. 1880. Library of Congress.

Source:

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=360