According to Wikipedia: 'Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 July 1, 1896) was an abolitionist, whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the U.S. and Britain. It made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North. It angered and annoyed the South. The impact is summed up in a commonly quoted statement apocryphally attri