WEBVTT - How Did 'Uncle Tom' Go from Hero to Traitor?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lauren

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<v Speaker 1>Vogelbaum here. Uncle Tom's Cabin was America's first bestseller after

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<v Speaker 1>being published in eighteen fifty two. This anti slavery novel

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<v Speaker 1>by Harriet Beecher Stowe sold some three hundred and ten

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<v Speaker 1>thousand copies in the United States and at least one

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<v Speaker 1>and a half million more abroad, where it was translated

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<v Speaker 1>into sixteen languages. But the greatest impact of Uncle Tom's

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<v Speaker 1>Cabin was to awaken its mostly white Northern US readers

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<v Speaker 1>to the horrors and immorality of chattel slavery. Before the

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<v Speaker 1>article this episode is based on How Stuff Work. Spoke

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<v Speaker 1>with Patricia Turner, a professor of African American Studies at UCLA.

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<v Speaker 1>She said Stowe was an abolitionist who tapped into the

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<v Speaker 1>historical moment. She thought, really strategically, what do I have

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<v Speaker 1>to write that will move the people to understand that

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<v Speaker 1>it's impossible to be a Christian and to hold slaves.

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<v Speaker 1>She knew exactly what kind of hero to create in

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<v Speaker 1>Uncle Tom, what kind of situations to put him in,

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<v Speaker 1>and how to characterize the slave owners in the book,

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<v Speaker 1>which may strike modern readers as overly sentimental. Uncle Tom

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<v Speaker 1>is a deeply faithful Christian, a courageous and selfless family

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<v Speaker 1>man who first risks his life to save a young

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<v Speaker 1>white girl and later gives his life rather than divulge

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<v Speaker 1>the location of two enslaved women who have escaped. Uncle

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<v Speaker 1>Tom is beaten to death by his cruel enslaver, but

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<v Speaker 1>not before Tom forgives his tormentor a much like Jesus

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<v Speaker 1>Christ in the story of his crucifixion. The book and

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<v Speaker 1>its hero deserve credit for popularizing the cause of abolition

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<v Speaker 1>in the lead up to the Civil War. According to

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<v Speaker 1>a well worn but unconfirmed legend, when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe,

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<v Speaker 1>he said, so you are the little woman who wrote

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<v Speaker 1>the book that stars did this great war. But here's

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<v Speaker 1>where the story of Uncle Tom takes an unexpected turn.

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<v Speaker 1>Uncle Tom was the heroic martyr of one of the

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<v Speaker 1>best selling books of the eighteen hundreds, but his name

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<v Speaker 1>got twisted into a modern day insult. In this sense,

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<v Speaker 1>it's most traditionally used by black people to accuse a

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<v Speaker 1>black person of being a trader to their people. So

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<v Speaker 1>how did this happen? Turner believes the transformation of Uncle

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<v Speaker 1>Tom from hero to trader began during the thousands of

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<v Speaker 1>wildly popular stage productions of Uncle Tom's Cabin that toured

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<v Speaker 1>the US and the globe from the eighteen fifties through

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<v Speaker 1>the nineteen thirties. Many of these were minstrel shows featuring

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<v Speaker 1>white actors wearing blackface, and Uncle Tom's character and the

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<v Speaker 1>book's storyline were changed to suit the mostly white working

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<v Speaker 1>class audiences. Stowe's novel was an earnest tragedy, but Turner

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<v Speaker 1>said in order to sell tickets, the producers needed to

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<v Speaker 1>come up with stage shows that would have music, comedy,

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<v Speaker 1>and a happy ending, and Uncle Tom was portrayed as

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<v Speaker 1>this extremely deferential, subservient, poorly spoken black man who would

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<v Speaker 1>give the white slave owners or any other white person

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<v Speaker 1>what they wanted, which was nothing like the book. The

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<v Speaker 1>stage productions also aged Tom into a feeble, white haired

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<v Speaker 1>old man rather than the hard working forty something who

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<v Speaker 1>the book character was. Turner says that nineteenth century white

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<v Speaker 1>audiences didn't want to see a strong black man on

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<v Speaker 1>stage unless he was demonized. Some scholars believe that the

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<v Speaker 1>Uncle Tom insult began when post emancipation black Americans were

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<v Speaker 1>trying to distance themselves from these subservant and pathetic caricatures

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<v Speaker 1>for this new generation struggling for true freedom from oppression,

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<v Speaker 1>not just in law, but in life. A black person

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<v Speaker 1>who played into the Uncle Tom stereotypes of the minstrel

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<v Speaker 1>show would indeed have been a traitor. But as per

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<v Speaker 1>the usual with history, the story isn't that simple. When

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<v Speaker 1>literary historian Adinas Spingarn first read Uncle Tom's Cabin in

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<v Speaker 1>graduate school at Harvard, she was struck by the obvious

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<v Speaker 1>discrepancy between Uncle Tom's christlike character in the book and

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<v Speaker 1>Uncle Tom the racialized slur. After hearing about the transformation

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<v Speaker 1>of Tom's character in minstrel shows, Spingarn tracked down hundreds

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<v Speaker 1>of newspaper reviews of the many stage productions of Uncle

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<v Speaker 1>Tom's Cabin. It turns out he wasn't described in contemporary

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<v Speaker 1>reviews as a subservient buffoon. How Stuff Works also spoke

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<v Speaker 1>with Spingarn, She said, in both white and black newspapers,

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<v Speaker 1>the character of Uncle Tom was described as virtuous and dignified.

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<v Speaker 1>In fact, the objections to him by some conservative white

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<v Speaker 1>critics was that he spoke too intelligently and too wisely,

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<v Speaker 1>and was too perfect a Christian. These were some of

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<v Speaker 1>the same conservative objections to the novel. Furthermore, the stage

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<v Speaker 1>productions were still seen as dangerous in former Confederate states

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<v Speaker 1>like Kentucky, which banned all touring shows of Uncle Tom's

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<v Speaker 1>Cabin as late as nineteen oh six. Spingarn published a

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<v Speaker 1>book about all of this in twenty eighteen, a titled

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<v Speaker 1>Uncle Tom From Martyr to Trader. In it, she argues

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<v Speaker 1>that the character and his name have been a quote

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<v Speaker 1>shaped by fundamental debates within the black community over who

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<v Speaker 1>should represent the race and how it should be represented.

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<v Speaker 1>It's hard for us twenty first century multimedia humans to

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<v Speaker 1>grasp the impact and influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin in

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<v Speaker 1>the nineteenth century imagination and how this character became the

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<v Speaker 1>very image and emblem of enslaved black Americans. One of

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<v Speaker 1>Thomas Edison's first fictional movies was a film version of

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<v Speaker 1>Uncle Tom's Cabin, released in nine two oh three, the

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<v Speaker 1>same year that he shot The Great Train Robbery. Spingarne

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<v Speaker 1>said Uncle Tom was so ubiquitously understood a stand in

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<v Speaker 1>for American slavery that both white and black Americans called

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<v Speaker 1>the days of slavery the days of Uncle Tom. The

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<v Speaker 1>sheer association of Uncle Tom with the violence and any

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<v Speaker 1>humanity of enslavement would have understandably engendered negative connotations, which

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<v Speaker 1>were then picked up by a rising tide of black

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<v Speaker 1>political leaders in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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<v Speaker 1>Spingarn says the term uncle Tom first took on a

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<v Speaker 1>pejorative meeting in the community as early as the eighteen eighties,

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<v Speaker 1>when a black lawyer decried what he called a subservient

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<v Speaker 1>Uncle Tom type of manhood, adding I despise that as

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<v Speaker 1>heartily as anyone. The term gained power as a potent

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<v Speaker 1>political epithet in the nineteen teens, was slung by people

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<v Speaker 1>like Reverend George Alexander Maguire, an acolyte of the Black

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<v Speaker 1>nationalist Marcus Garfie. Through the nineteen sixties, it remained a

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<v Speaker 1>choice insult. Malcolm X lobbed it at Martin Luther King Junior,

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<v Speaker 1>and Stokely Carmichael, a leader in the Black Power movement,

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<v Speaker 1>used it against Roy Wilkins, then the executive director of

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<v Speaker 1>the NAACP. More recently, the term has been wielded against

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<v Speaker 1>Black conservatives like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and black

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<v Speaker 1>supporters of Donald Trump. The Spingarn seas the long and

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<v Speaker 1>strange history of Uncle Tom as part and parcel of

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<v Speaker 1>America's ongoing struggle with its original sin of slavery and

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<v Speaker 1>the ongoing reality of racism. She said, the figure of

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<v Speaker 1>Uncle Tom has changed because we've always used him to

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<v Speaker 1>talk about race. What is authentic blackness? What is the

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<v Speaker 1>right protest strategy? What should the black image be? As

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<v Speaker 1>long as Americans keep grappling with these questions and with racism,

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<v Speaker 1>both overt and systemic, Uncle Tom will be right there

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<v Speaker 1>with us. Today's episode is based on the article the

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<v Speaker 1>Journey of Uncle Tom from abolitionist hero to ultimate sellout

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<v Speaker 1>on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff

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<v Speaker 1>is production by Heart Radio in partnership with howsdiffworks dot

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<v Speaker 1>Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts

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<v Speaker 1>from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.