Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), a melodrama by George L. Aiken. [Purdy's National Theatre, 325 perf.] The slave George Harris ( J. J. Prior) tells Eliza ( Mrs. J. J. Prior) he is fleeing to Canada. Eliza then learns that she and her young son are to be put up for sale, so she informs Uncle Tom ( J. Lingard) that she, too, must run away. She escapes by crossing an icy river. St. Clare ( J. B. Howe) has bought Uncle Tom, who had saved the life of Little Eva ( Cordelia Howard). Eva is brought up with a small black girl, Topsy ( Mrs. G. C. Howard), who has no conception of her origins and insists, “I 'spect I growed.” The kindly Uncle Tom warns St. Clare that his drinking will cause problems, but St. Clare does not heed his advice. Although Harris and Eliza are reunited, St. Clare is stabbed to death by the overseer Simon Legree ( N. B. Clare) before he can sign the papers freeing Uncle Tom and the other slaves. Legree proves a cruel master, but he is shot dead while resisting arrest for St. Clare's murder. Little Eva dies and is carried to heaven on the back of a milk‐white dove. Although numerous dramatizations of Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel were offered, all unauthorized, this was by far the most popular and had established a long‐run record of one hundred nights in Troy, New York, before coming to Broadway. One modern editor, Richard Moody, dismissed the tendency of many writers and critics to look on the work disdainfully, noting, “The forces of right and wrong on the slavery issue—not the struggle between North and South—are clearly and vigorously exposed. The language has an irresistible strength and vitality, and the rich panorama compels us to sense the magnitude of a vicious and pervasive evil.” The most popular theatre work of its era, it played a major role, along with the original novel, in stoking the fires of abolition. Aiken's version was said to be the first play offered on Broadway as an entire evening, without an afterpiece or any other entertainment. In one version or another it continued to tour the country for decades. There were forty‐nine troupes in 1879 and no fewer than a dozen companies still active in 1927. The first year not to see a full tour is believed to be 1930. Between this version and the many others touring the country, the play probably was seen by more Americans than any other in the history of our theatre. Many actors and families made careers of performing the work; they were known as “tommers” and their trade as “tomming.” George L. AIKEN (1830–76) was born in Boston and made his first stage appearance in Six Degrees of Crime in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1848. While never an important actor, he seems, unlike many of his colleagues, to have been constantly employed and often was assigned major roles, although in second string companies. His play Helos the Helot (1852) won one of the many prizes given at the time to encourage native drama. Most of Aiken's other works were mounted either at the Bowery or at Barnum's American Museum, a testimony to their melodramatic nature. Numbered among them were Ups and Downs of New York Life (1857), The Doom of Deville (1859), Harry Blake (1860), and The Earl's Daughter (1861). Aiken dramatized Uncle Tom's Cabin at the request of his cousin, George C. Howard, who ran the Troy (New York) Museum. Howard wanted the piece as a vehicle for his wife, who was to play Topsy, and his daughter, Cordelia Howard, who was to play Little Eva. Aiken is said to have completed his writing in a single week.