Lesson 9: After Slavery: Uncle Tom's Cabin in Popular Culture

Beginning very soon after its publication in book form, Uncle Tom's Cabin the best-selling novel became Uncle Tom's Cabin the unparalleled cultural phenomenon. Starting in the 1850s and extending well into the early twentieth century, Stowe's novel was revised and reproduced in the form of stage plays, sheet music, print advertising, children's books, domestic products, movies, and more.

This lesson, based upon the Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture site's rich archive of popular culture, guides students through an exploration of artifacts in order to consider the following question: How did post-slavery America remember and revise Stowe's novel? If students have recently completed Lesson 8 (After Slavery: Stowe's Vision), they will be familiar with the extent to which Stowe could imagine a future without slavery. Now, in Lesson 9, students will look at popular culture to discover how post-slavery America imagined its slavery past through Stowe's novel. Ironically, a novel that was written to protest the evils of slavery would frequently be transformed into a crowd-pleasing, nostalgic re-creation of the antebellum South.

Note : Students will need internet access to complete this lesson. Since they will be working in groups, one computer for every 3-4 students will suffice.


Section of Novel
This lesson does not depend upon students having read specific portions of the novel, but they will need to have read at least a few chapters of the novel. See the Progression of Selected Chapters for suggestions about which chapters to assign. The more students know of the novel, the better they will be able to evaluate popular culture's revisions and re-creations of it.

Length of Lesson :
This lesson can be as brief as 1 day, but 2 days is optimal. OR teachers may decide to spend one day of class time and then assign students the group activity as a final project.

Materials Needed
  • Lesson 9 Guided Tour Worksheet
  • internet access
  • Sitemap from Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture website
  • At Uncle Tom's Cabin Door, 1913 song from the Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture website
  • Optional: Merchandise from a contemporary blockbuster movie. Ask your teacher for details.

    Skills Focus -- based on Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOLs)
    History and Social Science:
    VUS.7 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era and its importance as a major turning point in American history by
    c) examining the political, economic, and social impact of the war and Reconstruction, including the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States
    VUS.8 The student will demonstrate knowledge of how the nation grew and changed from the end of Reconstruction through the early twentieth century by
    c) analyzing prejudice and discrimination during this time period, with emphasis on "Jim Crow" and the responses of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
    11th Grade English
    11.3 The student will read and analyze relationships among American literature, history, and culture.

    • The Lesson

    1. As a lesson opener, hold a brief "show-and-tell" with merchandise from a contemporary blockbuster movie. Teachers may want to bring in items themselves, or they might ask students ahead of time to bring movie merchandise. (This lesson opener could also be done without actually bringing in the merchandise.) As a class, have students list the types of items produced as a result of a popular movie.

    2. Tell students that Uncle Tom's Cabin, a "blockbuster" book in the 1850s, also became transformed into all kinds of popular culture: stage plays, advertising, children's books, figurines, songs, and eventually movies. To make this tangible to students, teachers may want to show them a couple of images from the Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture website:

      • For an idea of the size of the crowd at one stage play, see the photograph of the audience from Al W. Martin's Company
      • To see just how familiar the novel was to Americans, see how its characters were used in advertisements for consumer products like Topsy Tobacco
      • To demonstrate the range of products based upon the novel, see the Uncle Tom Card Game


    3. Tell students that they'll now be leaving the 1850s and traveling forward in time to the last half of the 19th century and early 20th century (1860s-1920s). Since slavery was abolished everywhere in the United States by the 13th Amendment in 1865, their focus will now be post-slavery America. While slavery no longer exists, Uncle Tom's Cabin is as popular, or perhaps more popular, than ever. Stephen Railton tells us that during this period, "Uncle Tom's Cabin was without question the single most frequently performed play in America." This lesson will ask students to consider why this is true.

    4. In order to model what students will next be doing in groups, have the class listen to At Uncle Tom's Cabin Door (released in 1913) from the Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture website. (To download the free programs necessary to listen to music on the web, see Stephen Railton's "Suggestions for Using the Music" on the Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture website. To get there, go to the Sitemap. Click on "Interpret Mode" on the right of the sitemap. Then click on "Lesson Plans." Scroll down and select "Suggestions for Teachers" by Stephen Railton. From here, select "Music." Then read the suggestions for teachers about using the music in the classroom.) After students have heard the song –- the lyrics are also available and might be helpful as students listen –- ask students to respond to what they've heard. How are the setting and events in the song similar or different from the original novel? How is slavery represented here?

    5. Remind students that this song was released several generations after the novel's first publication and after the abolishment of slavery – as well as fifteen years after the death of Stowe. If students have done Lesson 8 ("After Slavery: Stowe's Vision"), remind them that that lesson was about whether and how Stowe imagined a future without slavery. Today's lesson – through a focus on popular culture's versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin -- will now consider how those future Americans living after emancipation imagined America's slavery past. Teachers may want to display the following guiding questions for this lesson:

      • How did post-slavery America remember and revise Uncle Tom's Cabin?
      • How did post-slavery America remember and revise its history of slavery?


    6. These two connected questions will form the basis of students' exploration of the pop culture artifacts on the Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture website. Divide the class into groups of three students. Each group will need a computer with internet access. Assign one of the following topics to each group (it's fine to assign more than one group the same topic):

      • Life on the slave plantation
      • Relations between masters/mistresses and slaves
      • Race and racial difference (Focus on Topsy)


    7. To introduce students to the website they'll be exploring, direct them to the Sitemap. Students will only be touring the 5 categories in the bottom row of the sitemap labeled "Other Media." These categories are: "UTC as Children's Book," "Tomitudes," "Songs and Poems," "UTC On Stage," and "UTC at the Movies."

    8. Give each student a Guided Tour Worksheet. This worksheet will guide students to select at least two items from each of the five categories that represent their topic in some way.

    9. If students need additional guidance or explanation before they get started touring the website in groups, teachers may want to point out a few highlights from each section and perhaps model a close reading of one of the cultural artifacts.

    10. Now each group should begin its exploration of its assigned topic, assisted by the Guided Tour worksheet. Teachers will want to allow at least 30 minutes –- and longer if possible –- for students to complete this activity.

    11. How to wrap up this assignment depends on the time allotted. Teachers may want to simply discuss the students' findings as a class or have each group briefly present its findings. But the activities above might also be a good final project assignment. If teachers decide to go this route, give students more time to continue exploring the website and their topic outside of class. In this case, the final presentation could take a number of forms:

      • Have each group develop a guided tour of the Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture website based on their selected topic. The tour, which might be presented orally, on paper, or as a website, should include 5 "stops" along with an explanation of how these cultural artifacts exemplify the topic.

      • OR, instead of a tour, have students create and deliver a multi- media presentation that compares the novel to the materials they've found relating to their topic on the website. The form of this presentation might be more open-ended, allowing students to use their individual expertise (in art, performance, video, Powerpoint, web design, etc.)


    12. Whatever the time allotted to exploration and presentation, teachers will want to debrief at the end of the lesson by asking students to reconsider the lesson's guiding questions (either in class discussion or as a journal topic):

      • How did post-slavery America remember and revise Uncle Tom's Cabin?
      • How did post-slavery America remember and revise its history of slavery?


      In order to help students answer the guiding questions, teachers might want to begin with a few of the questions below:

      • How is slavery depicted?
      • What parts of the novel were most often represented in popular culture, and what parts weren't?
      • What kinds of changes from the original novel were made by the popular culture versions?
      • How are the major characters (especially Tom and Topsy) most often depicted? (Why is the popular culture version of Uncle Tom so much older? Why does Topsy never grow up and become a missionary as she does in the novel?)
      • How does Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was written to protest slavery, become a way of showing it in post-slavery America?
      • What can these items tell us about the popular meaning of Uncle Tom's Cabin?