Also, the help and care received by women in Uncle Tom's Cabin is offered to them by other women. An example of this would be when Mrs. Shelby makes Eliza's escape possible. She gave her women character's power and made people read from a slave woman's point of view. .
Stowe's book was made controversial because of her sex, or more specifically the proper limits of style and material that members of her sex should observe as authors (Douglas 11). Back then it was thought that a female should not confront slavery and racism. Harriet Beecher Stowe, however, took up whatever subject matter compelled her. Slavery was one of the subjects that she felt strongly about and she became the first woman to break these boundaries. By doing this she opened the eyes of many Americans, both male and female. This put her in a class with Fanny Burney and Jane Austen, who helped establish the fact that women could write novels. During this period American women were writing profitably (Douglas 12). She began Uncle Tom's Cabin with the hope that she would make enough money for a new silk dress, and ended up making enough money to pay off all of her families debts" ( Jakoubek 20). She was one of a kind. Today, no other American women authors of the period can justly be placed in her company (Douglas 12). .
When President Lincoln first met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he reportedly called her "the little lady who wrote the book that made this big war" (McMichael 1561). Uncle Tom's Cabin was the first protest novel in the United States. Therefore it brought out many controversies on slavery. No woman before or since Stowe has so successfully written a novel designed to stir up the nation in the cause of the major issue of the day (Douglas 13). Her book also gave other people the strength to speak on this issue. John Calhoun demanded that the United States "cease the agitation of the slave question" (Douglas 13).
