My thanks to Pam Lonsdale for her kind suggestion of this subject.

Image: courtesy of Google free pics; information sources: Wikipedia and other internet biographies and articles.

Stanza 1-2: 1811-1896. Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the 6th of 11 children who survived into adulthood.
She was a member of one of the 19th century's most remarkable families: her father a prominent, outspoken Congregationalist preacher (remarrying twice after the death of his first wife) and her siblings, notable teachers or ministers. Growing up in this environment, she was extremely studious to the point that her father wished she had been born a boy to benefit from greater opportunities. That said, she was able to study in her sister's seminary where she received a traditional education (uncommon for women at the time) focusing on classics, languages and mathematics.

Stanza 3 -4: At the age of 21 she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to join her father who was president of Lane Theological Seminary and became actively involved there. Cincinnati's trade and shipping business was booming, drawing escaped slaves, bounty hunters seeking them, and Irish immigrants. In 1829 riots famously broke out between the Irish and the blacks, driven by anti-abolitionists. Beecher met a number of African Americans who had suffered in the attacks and her experience prompted her to run a series of debates and focus on her work addressing slavery.

Stanza 5-6: In 1836 she married Rev, Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor of biblical literature at the seminary. They went on to have 7 children, one of whom, Charley, died at 18 months. Her deep sense of loss inspired still greater empathy when she heard of a woman who had run across the frozen floes of the Ohio river, desperate to escape slavery (later portrayed in Uncle Tom's Cabin). This was all the more poignant given the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, prohibiting assistance to escaped slaves. She, in fact, supported the Underground Railroad as well as providing temporary housing to fugitives.
"Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel."

Stanza 7-8 *Uncle Tom's Cabin (its sub-title: Life Among the Lowly) was published in book form in 1852 and, in less than a year, it sold an unprecedented 300,000 copies (also achieving great success in Britain). It was reportedly transcribed from visions from God. The emotional impact of the story demonstrated that slavery touched all elements of society, not just masters, traders and slaves. It added to the debate about abolition, arousing opposition in the South and a response comprising anti-Tom novels, obliging Stowe to publish the following year: A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. This documented the veracity of her depiction of slavery.
Although her book was undoubtedly explosive, subjecting her to threats of violence, she could hardly be held responsible for the start of the Civil War in 1861, despite Lincoln's apocryphal quote: So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!"

Stanza 9: Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, lawyer, legislator and vocal opponent of slavery was elected 16th president of the US shortly before the outbreak of the war which lasted until 1865 and the passing of the 13th Amendment forever abolishing slavery in all US states and territories. Tragically he was assassinated shortly prior to this momentous Act.
Stowe's work continued prolifically in her writing and, in particular, her campaigning for married women's rights which under common law amounted to nothing at all. "She passes out of legal existence."

Stanza 10: In the ensuing 10 years after her husbands death, her mind rapidly deteriorated and she became increasingly detached, almost ghost-like in her strange behaviour. Her drive to re-write Uncle Tom's Cabin, inspired from memory of her visions from God, took lengthy, painstaking hours to complete a work she believed to be an original one. She was, inevitably, suffering from Alzheimers.

Stanza 11:*cri de coeur - cry from the heart, impassioned protest.
"I never thought my book would turn so many people against slavery."
Rather than preach from the pulpit, her great impact was rooted in her profound skill to reach out to the public more personally in stories, the great leveller. Lincoln said: "Public sentiment is everything."
*"he who moulds public sentiments goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes or decisions possible or impossible to be executed."

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