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

In the 19th-century United States, only “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” sold more copies in its first years than “Looking Backward.”

From New York Times

Tubman had heard “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” read aloud, and she hated it.

From New York Times

On the U3 Line of Berlin's mass transit system, there's a stop called Onkel Toms Hütte, or Uncle Tom's Cabin.

From Salon

An introduction to a 1911 German edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" describes how "the Negroes are undeniably an inferior race, and, now that they have been freed, are widely perceived to be a plague in the United States."

From Salon

Bettina Hofmann, a professor of American studies at Bergische Universität Wuppertal, argues that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" introduced racial terms to the German language that foreshadow the Nazi race categories.

From Salon