Harriet Beecher Stowe

American abolitionist and author whose 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin became one of the most influential books in American history, energizing the anti-slavery cause and provoking outrage in the South. Lincoln reportedly greeted her with the words 'so this is the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.' Stowe wrote more than thirty books across genres but never escaped the shadow of her famous novel.