Born on June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, Connecticut, Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe received a traditional academic education at her sister Catherine’s school and studied classics and languages. She moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, when she was twenty-one. In Cincinnati, Stowe met several African Americans who had endured the Cincinnati riots of 1829, which took place between the Irish immigrants and the African Americans. Stowe also read a lot of abolitionist literature. She began writing a story about the evils of slavery based on the literature that she had read and her personal observations. The story was first serialized in Washington, D.C.’s abolitionist newspaper The National Era in 1851-52. It was published in book form in 1852 titled Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly. The novel was a sensation when it came out and is considered to have helped ignite the Civil War. After her husband’s death in 1886, Stowe’s health started deteriorating. She breathed her last on July 1, 1896, aged eighty-five. An American abolitionist and a famous author, Harriet Beecher Stowe continues to remain an important figure in world literature.