Talk:Anti-Tom literature

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An entry from Anti-Tom literature appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 5 August 2005.

The article calls Uncle Tom's Cabin "the best-selling novel of the 19th century". Is this meant to be worldwide or was Uncle Tom's Cabin just the best-selling American novel? I can't find a similar claim in the Uncle Tom's Cabin; what's the source for this? Thanks for clearing this up.--Pharos 01:37, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

It was the best selling novel in the world in the 19th century. This information is stated in numerous locations, including the second reference at the bottom of the article: "Caroline Lee Hentz's Long Journey" by Philip D. Beidler. Alabama Heritage Number 75, Winter 2005. Here is the section that states this: "In 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne kicked off a decade of saleable domestic melodrama with the controversial Scarlet Letter. The book was quickly eclipsed only a year later, however, by Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World. (It is frequently forgotten that, with the exception of Harriet Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Warner's book was the best-selling American novel of the nineteenth century.)"

Okay, technically, that reference is to the American domestic audience. However, there are others, such as [1] and [2]. The second reference says, "It was to become the second best-selling book in the world during the nineteenth century, second only to the Bible." Thanks for pointing out that this info wasn't in the Uncle Tom's Cabin article. I have now added it.--Alabamaboy 01:53, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming that; it's a pretty striking aspect of the book's history that I'm surprised wasn't in its article before.--Pharos 02:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Why do people claim that slaves were African Americans? President Abraham Lincoln asked Congress for money to pay slaveowners "for the loss of their property." Slaves were captives. Slaves were a commodity. Slaves were bought and sold. Please cease corrupting history. 141.151.176.221 00:43, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Two points. One, it seems to me that "without literary merit" is POV, I've tweaked it a bit. Also, I would believe that some slave narratives were a response to anti-Tom novels, but it seems to me that the genre actually predates anti-Tom writing, so I don't see how the whole genre can be described as a response. Is there some citation for this? Ethan Mitchell 23:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs references

I noticed a while back that this article doesn't have the linked references system its supposed to have. I could copy the system from another article but I don't have the references to add in. Someone should do this.--Onewayday 18:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Uncle Tom's Cabin?

All of the content in this article is quoted from Uncle Tom's Cabin. Is this a good candidate for merging? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.172.40.129 08:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that section of Uncle Tom's Cabin is quote from this article and the UTC article only contains a fraction of the info here. No need to merge.--Alabamaboy 15:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CouldGone With the Wind be considered anti-Tom literature?

I know that it was published in the wrong period , but it references Uncle Tom's Cabin through Northerners asking about slave-owners treatment of slaves based on their reading of the book, portrays African-Americans as childlike and dependent on white people, and is generally sympathetic to the pre-Civil War South and slavery. Curtangel 17:21, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

No. This type of literature was written directly in response to UTC. GWTW wasn't written as a direct response to that novel. Best, --Alabamaboy 19:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

In the Southern Literary Response section, I feel it would be more descriptive and less biased to write that Anti-Tom literature perpetuated a paternalistic viewpoint of the relationship between slaves and masters instead of describing it as simply "racist." Thanks, Scott

Done. This change was already made in the main Uncle Tom's Cabin article and should have also been made here. Best, --Alabamaboy 18:36, 22 May 2007 (UTC)