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Harriet Beecher Stowe

Photography Studio Southworth and Hawes American
1850s
Not on view
This quarter-plate daguerreotype of the American author Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was probably made around the time of the publication of her influential novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). The enormously successful book, which the deeply religious Stowe maintained was the result of a vision from God, was instrumental in focusing antislavery sentiment in the North prior to the Civil War. Charmingly paired with a delicate potted plant in a scene evoking a quiet domestic interior, Stowe appears small and rather demure-a surprisingly mild depiction of a woman known for the power of her literary voice, and for her passionate espousal of abolition.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • Photography Studio: Southworth and Hawes (American, active 1843–1863)
  • Artist: Albert Sands Southworth (American, West Fairlee, Vermont 1811–1894 Charlestown, Massachusetts)
  • Artist: Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, Wayland, Massachusetts 1808–1901 Crawford Notch, New Hampshire)
  • Date: 1850s
  • Medium: Daguerreotype
  • Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 cm. (4 1/4 x 3 1/4 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gift of I. N. Phelps Stokes, Edward S. Hawes, Alice Mary Hawes, and Marion Augusta Hawes, 1937
  • Object Number: 37.14.40
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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