Pink and White Tyranny »

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!"

Originally published in 1871, Pink and White Tyranny is, seemingly, a light, comic story about a frivolous young girl who marries for money. However, as with most of Beecher Stowe's writings, things are not what they appear on the surface. This "society novel," instead, is a critique of the nineteenth-century's dominant view that women should use their femininity to gain power. Reflective of Stowe's progressive moral and domestic views, the novel is a refreshing work of social satire that showcases Stowe's comic abilities as well as her progressive views.