Historical Context
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was published as a complete work in 1861, after having been first published in serial form over several months in a newspaper called the New-York Tribune. When the book finally came out, and as it was starting to be discussed and widely distributed, the Civil War started, and had a tremendous effect on the book's resonance with the public, how widely it was distributed, and who had time to read it—everyone was busy with the war effort. The book was originally written as a way for Jacobs to get her story told, in part to help the abolitionist movement, and also to appeal to white affluent middle class women who were the ones reading this type of literature at the time. At the time the book was published the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was still in effect, making it a felony for anybody who found a runaway slave not to return the slave to the owner. The events in the book also help to highlight the impact of the Fugitive Slave Act and its effects on people in the north as well as the south.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is strongly tied to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852, in terms of themes; both were written as sentimental anti-slavery books. Though Uncle Tom’s Cabin is fictional, the book addressed the notion of everyone being involved in the perpetuated cycle of chattel slavery, even women, people living in the north, and people who did not own slaves. That book resonated so well within society that some people, including President Abraham Lincoln, have said that it started the Civil War.
Read more about this topic: Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl
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“Historical! Must it be historical to catch your attention? Even though historicity, like notoriety, denotes nothing more than that something has occurred.”
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—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)