Mightier than the Sword: and the Battle for America Paperback – Illustrated, June 11, 2012

New and Noteworthy----Was The Fugitive Slave Law Repealed By Uncle Tom's Cabin?Mightier Than The Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle For America, David S. Reynolds, Norton Publishing, 351 pp., 43 b/w illustrations, notes, bibliography, index, 2011, $27.95.Before the Civil War Uncle Tom's Cabin: Life Among The Lowly was banned in the slave holding states and readers were jailed if found with a copy. In December 1862, Lincoln greeted the author "Is this the little woman who made this great war?" This remark may be a false memory written down three decades later by the author's relative but it reveals that maybe Uncle Tom's Cabin is better remembered as a provoking piece of literature than it is for plot and characters. Is the novel's reputation more important than its contents? Other novels, such as Jack Kerouac's One The Road [1957] and poems such as Allen Ginsburg's Howl[ 1955] have had similar fate. People know enough about them to get the Jeopardy question right, but haven't read them.Starting with the June 5, 1851 issue, Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared as a weekly serial in theNational Era, an abolitionist newspaper. The serialized story, like Charles Dicken's serialized works, began to change hearts and minds from 'I don't care' to 'Maybe slave holding is wrong.' The book was published in 1852. It is estimated that each copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin before the Civil War had ten readers or listeners. At a time when reading aloud to the household was typical, each copy served an audience that discussed it immediately afterward.In this modern era it is difficult to read Uncle Tom's Cabin; CWL started it twice. The dialects were too thick to read either silently or aloud. The problem was solved by securing an audio book read by an professional reader. It worked not only for CWL but also for his children, who on more than one occasion refused to leave the car until a chapter was concluded.Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America, is a biography of the life of a book in the context of 150 years of American literary, social, political, and entertainment history. David S. Reynolds knows this history well; his biographies of Walt Whitman and the notorious John Brown are fine examples that teach their readers as much about American culture as they do Whitman and Brown. Reynolds shows that Uncle Tom's Cabinwas central not only to the antebellum era but also from the Reconstruction era through today. The themes of fairness, family, and the empowerment of marginalized minorities are constant themes in American life and groups. The novel speaks to African-Americans, women, social and political protest movements that struggle within the confines of the American democratic republic.Reynolds offers interpretations of religion, reform, literature [both literary and pulp fiction] and theater. He examines two plot lines from the novel. The Northern one involves the escape of a slave family from Kentucky to Canada and the Southern one traces the painful separation of Tom, a slave, from his family when he is sold from Kentucky to Mississippi. For Reynolds, Stowe realistic human narrative had "a crystal clear social point: slavery was evil, and so were the political and economic institutions that supported it." [xii]. What made slavery wrong? For Stowe, the central issue was that slavery destroyed families.Uncle Tom's Cabin was immediately translated into European and other languages, including Russian and Chinese. Vladimir Lenin named it as his favorite book and cited it as an impetus for his revolutionary life. Mightier Than the Sword relates the path of the novel from the pen of Stowe, an emotionally and economically depressed mother living in Cincinnati, Ohio, through the modern Civil Rights Movement that denigrated Uncle Tom as a black, servile, master-pleasing character. Both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were labeled Uncle Toms by African American radicals who pursued violent confrontations. Uncle Tom's Cabin provoked Southerners to offer counter-fictions, the most successful of which came 40 years after the Civil War. Thomas Dixon was so enraged by a theatrical performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin that he wrote three novels.These novels were used as source documents for D.W. Griffith's film The Birth of A Nation. Reynolds merges this racist film with the Dunning school of thought regarding Reconstruction. The Dunning school believed that Reconstruction was the Dark Age of the South, one in which corrupt Carpetbaggers and Scalawags advanced illiterate, uncouth, lust-filled blacks into political power. The school understood the violent response of the Ku Klux Klan as noble and necessary.Was the Fugitive Slave Law repealed by Uncle Tom's Cabin? Reynolds leave little doubt that the novel did indeed convert many Northerners who didn't worry about slavery to a position in which worry and then resistance was an acceptable response to the extension of slavery in the western territories. During the Victorian era, the idea of 'family' was foundational to society. Uncle Tom's Cabin showed that slavery was an assault on the ideal of family.It is not necessary to have read Uncle Tom's Cabin before reading Mightier Than The Sword. Reading or listening to Uncle Tom's Cabin after reading Mightier Than The Sword would be true to the goal of a liberal arts education. Living history presenters would be well served by addressing Mightier Than The Sword. Quite likely the historical person whom the presenter is portraying read Uncle Tom's Cabin and, whether a Northerner or Southerner, it challenged them.

I thought "Mightier Than the Sword" was an excellent overview of the impact and legacy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It offers interesting biographical background about Harriet Beecher Stowe and her motivations for writing the novel. It sets "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in the context of other anti-slavery literature and describes the immediate impact it had on the escalating debate over slavery. It shows what an incredible publishing phenomenon it was and how it became universally familiar to all Americans through hundreds of stage and music hall productions and, later, films. I found most interesting the author's discussion of how the story became trivialized and caricatured over the decades, including how the essentially noble Uncle Tom has morphed into a symbol of weakness and accommodation. There is a lot of interesting information about Stowe, her book, racial attitudes, the entertainment industry and much more in this book, all presented in a clear, well-organized way. It's a thoughtful read, packed with information. It's also inspired me to reread "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and to reassess it in the light of what I've learned from this study.

arrived in (as promised) good condition.....looking forward to reading the book..no noticeable underlinings or marks in the pages

It was okay, but not his first choice of book reading for a DC course in high school

I am buying this book on the recommendation of Annette Gordon-Reed's (Andrew Johnson: The American Presidents Series: The 17th President, 1865-1869 The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family) review of it in the June 13 & 20, 2011 New Yorker. June 14 is the 200th anniversary of Harriet Beecher Stowe's birthday, and Gordon-Reed's review of Reynolds's book places Stowe in context as a white "feminist" religious person persuading the public through "a vocation to preach on paper" -- writing being the one medium available to women in her time.Harriet Beecher Stowe experienced empathy for enslaved people sold down the river when her 18 mo. old son died. She wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin as a result of subsequent "visions." (She had also lost her own mother at the age of 5.) I have not previously had a desire to read Uncle Tom's Cabin because I thought of it only as a stereotyping of Black people, but Gordon-Reed gave me reason to reconsider it in combination with Reynolds's "Mightier than the Sword."

The breadth and scope of this book on Uncle Tom's Cabin by David S. Reynolds is breathtaking. Reynolds does a great job of placing Harriet Beecher Stowe's book in historical and cultural context. I was very taken with the author's ability to show the impact and influence of Stowe's book on its times and far into the future. He shows that it still has impact in the 21st Century. The book is not long, but it is very well researched. Indeed, the quality of the research is impressive. It is a must read for anyone wanting to gain insight into race relations in this country.

Fascinating book. I had to go back and read Uncle Tom's cabin again after reading this. How quickly we forget how the course of history is changed, sparked by a specific event. This book will make you think! I love the way the author demonstrates the role the church played leading up to the Civil War - a fair portrayal with its failures but also its successes, allowing true "love your neighbor" faith in Jesus to shine through.

This is truly one of the greatest books I've ever read. I found out that the Beechers were very influential in the theory of a "loving God".

A an excellent book written by a very intelligent person.

Great history book. Interesting look into the life of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Quite informative.