Harriet Beecher Stowe used Weld’s book as a source for scenes in the most influential indictment of slavery of all time, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (of which more later). Written in the sentimental style made popular by best-selling women novelists, Uncle Tom’s Cabin homed in on the breakup of families as the theme most likely to pluck the heartstrings of middle-class readers who cherished children and spouses of their own. Eliza fleeing across the ice-choked Ohio River to save her son from the slave-trader and Tom weeping for children left behind in Kentucky when he was sold South are among the most
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