Anti-Tom Literature Exhibits

170 years of literary backlash, and reimagining

Shortly after the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in March 1852, a new genre of literature emerged, that is, the anti-Tom genre. This genre seeks to highlight the flaws within Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Although this genre was initially used primarily by pro-slavery writers to convey express discontent with abolitionism in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the anti-Tom genre has since moved away from pro-slavery ideology. In new anti-Tom literature, writers argue instead from an anti-slavery perspective.

Anti-Tom Literature (1852-1860)

“The book has been written in the hope that it may lead to broad and correct views on the subject of slavery” – Charles Jacobs Peterson in The Cabin and Parlor

New Anti-Tom Literature

“What was once considered an important, crusading novel has come to be seen as racist and patronizing in its depiction of Black people” – Joel Mathis in The Week newsletter (September, 2022)

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2023

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Adult Group Interest Form

Group Tour Interest Form 2022

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Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.