The artifact I ended up going with from the MWWC was a very old edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book itself looked really run down and used and the cover was really cracked. It stood out to me that the pages looked either warn, ripped and uneven. So finding specific pages would be difficult.
My eyes were immediately drawn to the inscription that was handwritten by the author herself. The handwriting was very difficult to make out, but I could make out a few things alluding to something about helping the needy. So why would she include this quote? The bottom is signed by her as well so is this a quote from her own mouth? I would be interested in learning more about what purpose she had for including this in this edition of her novel.
I also took a look at the introduction of the book. In this, especially in the beginning, it talks about what experience the author has with slavery topics. But it took me a Google search to find out that Stowe was an active abolitionist during her time. This made me think about who has the authority to write about certain subjects. Is it okay for a white person to write about an enslaved main character? Can an abolitionist create an arcuate interpretation without living it herself or can she just base it on her observations? This has been a huge debate in a variety of different contexts. I believe this novel may be aimed at other abolitionists because maybe she is trying to get them to see what she is noticing. Maybe she is seeing a lot of unfair treatment around her and she wants to convince more people to fight with her against it. Or maybe she is writing this for those who are enslaved to help them understand that there are people like her out there.
