This Week in Books: Should We Still Read <em>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em>?

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, first published to colossal success in 1852, has been in reputational free fall ever since. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel about the trials of an enslaved man named Tom who accepts his suffering with Christian equanimity proved a boon to the abolitionist cause, though its actual depictions of Black people skimp on providing them with much humanity. Even in its time, the book was vulgarized via stage adaptations that reduced Stowe’s story to minstrelsy and her characters to caricatures. Today, a work that did so much to shake white northerners out of their complacency is remembered mostly as a slur. But in for ’s October issue, Clint Smith surprised himself by discovering the original power of the book—along with what remains so limited and prejudiced about it. His article uncovers the story of Josiah Henson, the “original” Uncle Tom, Stowe’s real-life inspiration for the character. In his 1849 memoir, Henson described what it was like to be an overseer on a Maryland plantation and all of the moral compromises he had to make to survive slavery. Becoming acquainted with Henson’s story also gave Smith a new perspective on . I talked with Smith about this aspect of his essay, and how he was able