Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 8-2016 A Family Dispute: The African-American Community's Response to Uncle Tom Spencer York Clemson University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Recommended Citation York, Spencer, "A Family Dispute: The African-American Community's Response to Uncle Tom" (2016). All Theses. 2426. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/2426 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. A FAMILY DISPUTE: THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY’S RESPONSE TO UNCLE TOM A Thesis Presented To The Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts History by Spencer York August 2016 Accepted by: Dr. Paul Anderson, Committee Chair Dr. Abel Bartley Dr. Orville Vernon Burton Abstract This thesis is an attempt to understand the complex relationship between the African-American community and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It argues that a large reason for the negative connotation of “uncle Tom” within the African-American community was caused by conflicts between intellectual patterns and traditions of the community and Stowe’s vision in her novel. This thesis looks at the key texts in the intellectual history of the African-American community, including the literary responses by African Americans to the novel. This thesis seeks to fill gaps in the history of the African-American community by looking at how members of the community exercised their agency to achieve the betterment of the community, even in the face of white opposition.