"Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the Reading Revolution: Race, Literacy, Childhood, and Fiction, 1851-1911 (Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book)

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the Reading Revolution explores a transformation in the cultural meaning of Stowe's influential book by addressing changes in reading practices and a shift in widely shared cultural assumptions. These changes reshaped interpretive conventions and generated new meanings for Stowe's text in the wake of the Civil War. During the 1850s, men, women, and children avidly devoured Stowe's novel. White adults wept and could not put the book down, neglecting work and other obligations to complete it. African Americans both celebrated and denounced the book. By the 1890s, readers understood Uncle Tom's Cabin in new ways. Prefaces and retrospectives celebrated Stowe's novel as a historical event that led directly to emancipation and national unity. Commentaries played down the evangelical and polemical messages of the book. Illustrations and children's editions projected images of entertaining and devoted servants into an open-ended future. In the course of the 1890s, Uncle Tom's Cabin became both a more viciously racialized book than it had been and a less compelling one. White readers no longer consumed the book at one sitting; Uncle Tom's Cabin was now more widely known than read. However, in the growing silence surrounding slavery at the turn of the century, Stowe's book became an increasingly important source of ideas, facts, and images that the children of ex-slaves and other free-black readers could use to make sense of their position in U.S. culture. Hochman (foreign literatures and linguistics, Ben-Gurion U.) uses contemporary writings, illustrations, and even penciled margin notes to give a fascinating analysis of how the reading of the 19th century's bestselling novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, changed over its first fifty years. Wildly popular when it came out, readers found it so moving and gripping, the often read it in a single sitting. It fueled the fires of the abolitionist cause. After the war, however, views on the novel began to change, and by the 1890s and the Jim Crow era, it was regarded differently. Illustrations and abridged versions of the text began to change in ways that de-emphasized the intelligence, literacy, and empathetic qualities of the black characters while playing up racial stereotypes. White readers began to read it as a chronicle of times past while a new audience of black readers read it with increasing interest. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Frontmatter List of Illustrations (page ix) Preface: On Readers (page xi) Introduction: The Afterlife of a Book (page 1) 1. Uncle Tom's Cabin in the National Era: Recasting Sentimental Images (page 26) 2. Imagining Black Literacy: Early Abolitionist Texts and Stowe's Rhetoric of Containment (page 51) 3. Legitimizing Fiction: Protocols of Reading in Uncle Tom's Cabin (page 78) 4. Beyond Piety and Social Conscience: Uncle Tom's Cabin as an Antebellum Children's Book (page 104) 5. Sentiment without Tears: Uncle Tom's Cabin as History in the Wake of the Civil War (page 131) 6. Imagining the Past as the Future: Illustrating Uncle Tom's Cabin for the 1890s (page 169) 7. Sparing the White Child: The Lessons of Uncle Tom's Cabin for Children in an Age of Segregation (page 205) Epilogue: Devouring Uncle Tom's Cabin: Black Readers between Plessy vs. Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education (page 231) Notes (page 253) Bibliography (page 331) Index (page 363) The Afterlife Of A Book -- Uncle Tom's Cabin In The National Era: Recasting Sentimental Images -- Imagining Black Literacy: Early Abolitionist Texts And Stowe's Rhetoric Of Containment -- Legitimizing Fiction: Protocols Of Reading In Uncle Tom's Cabin -- Beyond Piety And Social Conscience: Uncle Tom's Cabin As An Antebellum Children's Book -- Sentiment Without Tears: Uncle Tom's Cabin As History In The Wake Of The Civil War -- Imagining The Past As The Future: Illustrating Uncle Tom's Cabin For The 1890s -- Sparing The White Child: The Lessons Of Uncle Tom's Cabin For Children In An Age Of Segregation -- Devouring Uncle Tom's Cabin: Black Readers Between Plessy Vs. Ferguson And Brown Vs. Board Of Education. Barbara Hochman. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. The author analyzes how the reading of Uncle Tom's Cabin, changed over its first fifty years. It was extremely popular when it came out, fueling the abolitionist cause. After the war, however, views on the novel began to change, and by the 1890s and the Jim Crow era, it was regarded differently. Illustrations and abridged versions of the text began to change in ways that de-emphasized the intelligence, literacy, and empathetic qualities of the black characters while playing up racial stereotypes. White readers began to read it as a chronicle of times past while a new audience of black readers read it with increasing interest