House and Home Papers

This 1865 volume by Harriet Beecher Stowe was originally published under the psuedonym Christopher Crowfield. The volume contains short stories and essays revolving around subjects of cookery and domestic economy. The most famous story from the collection, The Ravages of a Carpet, describes what happens to a typical family with the acquisition of consumer goods, which had suddenly become more available.

Harriet Beecher Stowe first published her groundbreaking novel Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 as an outcry against slavery after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. The book sold more copies than any book other than the Bible and caused Abraham Lincoln to exclaim upon meeting her, during the Civil War, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"