Uncle Tom's Cabin

American  

noun

1. an antislavery novel (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin Cultural  

1. (1852) A novel, first published serially, by Harriet Beecher Stowe; it paints a grim picture of life under slavery. The title character is a pious, passive slave, who is eventually beaten to death by the overseer Simon Legree.

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Published shortly before the Civil War, Uncle Tom's Cabin won support for the antislavery cause.

Although Stowe presents Uncle Tom as a virtuous man, the expression “Uncle Tom” is often used as a term of reproach for a subservient black person who tolerates discrimination.

Example Sentences

Montgomery buys home that inspired novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

From Washington Post • Feb. 25, 2022

Anti-slavery activists sang Foster's music, and theater troupes inserted "My Old Kentucky Home" into theatrical productions of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

From Salon • May 1, 2021

The attack infuriated Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the international best-seller Uncle Tom’s Cabin and a friend of Annabella’s.

From Slate • Dec. 4, 2018

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was also part of a revolution in American literature, one of thousands of inexpensive newspapers, magazines, books, pamphlets, handbills, and sheets of music that flooded stores and post offices.

From Textbooks • Jan. 18, 2018

One of them said that it would be a nice time to bury the novel, now that a Virginian, one hundred years after Appomattox, had written Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut