2/14 — Anti-Tom Texts (2)


    These four selections were all written by men, within the first year after Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared.

  • Life at the South
        Read Chapter 1, just pages 13-16, and Chapters 25 and 26 (46 pages).

  • Frank Freeman's Barber Shop
        Read the second half of Chapter 6, pages 102-111, and Chapter 18 (20 pages).

  • Uncle Robin in His Cabin in Virginia...
        Read Chapters 2 and 13 (46 pages).

  • Samuel Hele, Esq.
        This isn't an "anti-Tom" novel, but a different kind of fictional attack on Stowe. It's a chapter from Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi, by Joseph Baldwin, one of the better-selling books in the genre of South-Western Humor, one of the few ante-bellum fictional genres that can be specifically identified with male readers (20 pages).

  • This last article is unsigned, but I don't hesitate to say it was also written by a man. From a southern quarterly, it includes a lengthy extract from The Cabin and Parlor, yet another "anti-Tom" novel, but all I want you to read is the last paragraph. That begins with a brief mention of two additional "anti-Toms" — Frank Freeman's Barber Shop and Northwood, by the editor of Godey's Lady's Book — but I want you to read it for its tone: you'll hear a much more belligerent note than any of the "anti-Tom" fictions strike. In 1853 it's already ready for civil war, if necessary to defend slavery: Critical Notices (January 1853)

  • OPTIONAL: If you want to see all the "anti-Tom" texts in the archive, their homepage is HERE.


  • BACK TO CLASS HOMEPAGE