Andover[, n.p.] 24 Nov[ember 18]55[.]

DEAR SIR

Give me leave to ask whether the within extract fairly represents the remarks you made¹Harriet Beecher Stowe probably refers to Douglass’s comments about her during the National Negro Convention held in Philadelphia on 16-18 October 1855. Douglass expressed disappointment at the small amount of money Stowe collected for the proposed Industrial College, especially during her tour of the British Isles in 1853-54. Stowe raised only $535 rather than the $10,000 that Douglass had expected. , 26 October, 2 November 1852; Levine, , 88-89, 261n62.—Until this point is ascertained I have not a basis for expressing myself at all upon the subject—If what you said is not this will you be so kind as to favor me with a Copy of what you did say. As the American Anti-Slavery Society have never in the Slightest instance volunteered me the least advice upon the subject alluded to or addressed me a syllable in the form of a letter it is only a matter of justice to them that this should be publicly understood—The passage in question is a real annoyance to me² In his remarks in Philadelphia, Douglass had charged: “From the assurance made to me by Mrs. Stowe I fully expected that on her return we should have sufficient funds to make a start in the college, but the Garrisonian Abolitionists had sent her packs of letters, and used their papers to prevent the contribution of funds towards it. They argued that we should not have such an institution as long as there were slaves in the country, but in this I think they had the cart before the horse.” Indeed, Stowe was not being completely candid with Douglass. In an undated letter to Wendell Phillips, Stowe complained about the pressure that African Americans had placed on her to be the principal fund-raiser for the manual-labor college, stating “Why don’t they one—many men among the colored people are richer than I am—& better able to help such an object—Will they learn to walk?” , 2 November 1855; Hedrick, , 247; Levine, , 261n. & I beg that you will embrace an early opportunity of giving me some definite explanation respecting it

Very Truly as Ever Yr friend

H B STOWEStowe, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (1811–96), the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and a member of the outspoken Beecher family, began writing early in life and pioneered the use of slang and regional dialects in her works. Although Uncle Tom’s Cabin remains the most famous of Stowe’s writings, she published a number of others widely read in the nineteenth century, including a novel on slavery Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), Little Foxes (1866), and My Wife and I; or Harry Henderson's History (1871). Stowe never spoke publicly on behalf of abolition, but her name was one of those most closely associated with the cause because of the overwhelming international popularity of these novels. She and Douglass continued to correspond after this letter, meeting for the first time in 1853. Although he criticized her for advocating colonization and for failing to donate proceeds from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to the antislavery cause, to which she responded with a less than enlightened attitude, she defended him against Garrison. Catherine Gilbertson, Harriet Beecher Stowe (New York, 1937); Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (New York, 1994); Forrest Wilson, Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Philadelphia, 1941); Stowe, Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe; Stowe, Life and Letters

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 1, frame 653, FD Papers, DLC.