WHEN UNCLE TOM DIDN'T DIE: THE ANTISLAVERY POLITICS OF H. J. CONWAY'S UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

Although Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin is widely credited with helping turn the nation against slavery and hastening the Civil War, the theatrical productions based on her novel have precisely the opposite reputation. Many scholars believe that despite the initial antislavery influence of George L. Aiken's 1852 dramatization, the Uncle Tom plays rapidly degraded, becoming more harmful than helpful to African Americans. The plays are also frequently blamed for turning Uncle Tom, the heroic Christian martyr of Stowe's novel, into the submissive race traitor his name connotes today. The “process of vulgarization” that afflicted the Uncle Tom's Cabin dramas is said to have begun almost immediately, with the 1852 premiere of H. J. Conway's adaptation. Today, Conway's version is widely designated a pro-Southern or compromise dramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin, especially compared to Aiken's influential adaptation, which is considered to have the strongest antislavery message of the many adaptations and to be the most faithful to Stowe's novel.