Harriet Beecher Stowe died 1 July 1896. On that date the Democrats were assembling in Chicago to nominate a candidate for the Presidency and the United Confederacy Association was holding its Sixth Annual Reunion in Richmond. All across the country Americans were getting ready to celebrate July Fourth and bicycling was a popular fad. Along with reports of these events, most newspapers devoted space to the passing of the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and used her death as an occasion to assess the novel's place in the nation's history and consciousness.

Papers often ran both a news story and an editorial comment on Stowe. The first article below is a news story, a slightly rewritten text of the basic Associated Press announcement that was used in a lot of papers. Most of the other items here are editorials. Not here are the responses of black newpapers, which can be found under "Later Assessments" in the AFRICAN AMERICAN RESPONSES section of the archive.

Some papers ran pictures of Stowe with the obituary articles. You can see them by clicking on the IMAGE links.