Harriet Beecher Stowe

June 14, 1811 Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut.

1816 Beecher’s mother, Roxanna Foote Beecher, dies.

1824 Harriet begins attending Hartford Female Seminary, founded by her eldest sister, Catharine.

1832 Beecher moves to Cincinnati, Ohio at an age of 21 with her family when her father is selected to be the president of Lane Theological Seminary. She joins the Semi-Colon literary and social club.

January 6, 1836 Beecher marries theology professor Calvin Ellis Stowe, and the two have seven children in the years to come.

1849 Stowe’s eighteen-month-old son, Charley, dies of cholera.

1850 Stowe moves to Brunswick, Maine when her husband becomes a professor at Bowdoin College.

1850 The passing of the Fugitive Slave Law disturbs both Harriet and her husband, and Harriet has a vision of a dying slave during a communion service. She soon begins writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

June 5, 1851 Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published in The National Era, an abolitionist periodical.

1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published in book form with the help of John P. Jewett.

1853 Stowe moves to Andover, Massachusetts, her husband accepting the position of theology professor at Andover Theological Seminary.

1864 Stowe moves to Hartford, Connecticut after Calvin’s retirement. Here she produces many of her well-known later works.

July 1, 1896 Harriet Beecher Stowe dies at the age of 85 in Hartford. She is buried in Andover, Massachusetts in the Phillips Academy cemetery.

1820 As the Missouri Compromise is developed, Harriet grows interested in the issue of slavery, often discussing it with her family.

1832 - 1841 Beecher encounters many free blacks who, having migrated to Ohio for its vibrant shipping industry, were involved in the Cincinnati riots of 1829, 1836, and 1841 between Irish immigrants and African Americans.