Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in order to change people's perspective about slave life. Her story was originally published in serial form over 40 weeks for National Era, but because of its popularity was published as a novel. National Era was an abolitionist publication, fitting to the anti-slavery intent of Stowe's work.

Uncle Tom's Cabin follows the struggles of a family of slaves as they struggle to gain freedom in the U.S. As family members make sacrifices for their freedom and the reader comes to know Tom, the central character, Stowe leads her audience through the complexities of abolition and the horrors African-Americans faced as slaves.