Moody, Richard. Uncle Tom, the Theater and Mrs. Stowe. American Heritage, Oct 55, VI, no. 6, 29-33; 103.

29: 1890s heyday of the traveling tom show; quotes letter of Tommer with John Shea's troupe; World's Fair, Chicago, featured the play;

quotes letter of HBS to Asa Hutchinson, a popular temperance singer, who requested permission to prepare a dramatization:

29-30: "I have considered your application and asked advice of my different friends, and the general sentiment of those whom I have consulted so far agrees with my own, that it would not be advisable to make that use of thew ork which you propose. It is thought, with the present state of theatrical performances in this country, that any attempt on the part of Christians to itentify themselves with them will be productive of danger to the individual character, and to the general cause. If the barrier which now keeps young people of Christian families from theatrical entertainments is once broken down by the introduction of respectable and moral plays, they will then be open to all the temptations of those who are not such, as there will be , as the world now is, five bad plays to one good. ...
The world is not good enough yet for it to succeed."

[Hannah Page Wheeler Andrews in Theme and Variations: Uncle Tom's Cabin as Book, Play, and Film, 1979, quotes part of this passage on p. 106, attributing the source to Edward Wagenkencht, Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Known and Unknown, New York: Oxford Univesity Press, 1965, p. 132. She does not include the qualifying consultation with friends which suggests that perhaps HBS was more drawn to the idea of stage presentation than those who she consulted (Calvin?). Thomas Gossett, p. 261-262, paraphrases the letter, quoting less than Moody, citing Harry Birdoff, pp. 23-24, as his source, adding: "It was "impracticable," she said -- as if anticipating an obhjection Hutchinson might make -- to hope that the drama would be reformed. "[A]s a friend to you ...," she said "[I] hope that you would not run the risk of so dangerous an experiment." Hutchinson accepted Stowe's refusal and abandoned his efforts. Other people, however, soon took advantage of the fact that she did not have a leag right to forbid dramatic adaptations." notes she changed her mind and on at least three occasions attended performances.

30: reviews publication history:

"Uncle Tom's Cabin became one of the all-time sensations of book publishing history. By 1878, the British Museum had shelved copies of the book in twenty different languages, including Bohemian, Modern Greek, Russian, Siamese, and Servian. Uncle Tom's Cabin covered the globe. In 1856, Thomas Macaulay, having just returned from Italy, wrote to Mrs. Stowe, "There is no place where 'Uncle Tom' is not to be found."

notes first stage version, The Southern Uncle Tom, performed at Batlimroe Museum on January 5, 1852; after another performance or two in Richmond at the Marshall theater, nothing more was heard of it.

31: George Aiken's version, Troy New York caught on. Wrote it in one week; 3 1/2 hr drama; mostly from book; September 27, 1852 opening; sequel, then combined into one play by Aiken; Purdy's National Theater in N.Y. staged a Taylor adaptation that did not do well.

32: triumph of the Howard family; tomming their bread and butter for the next 35 years; Cordelia was Eva, etc.

32: managing editor of the Atlantic Monthly, Francis R. Underwood, took her to a performance of the Howards in Boston's National Theater in 1854; thinks she told him she had never been before; [Hendrick, HBS, 1994, p. 249 indicates that Mrs. Stowe wrote a dramatization in 1856 while in England]

33: July 18, 1853, Purdy tried again, this time successful;

P.T. Barum in competetion used a dramatization by Henry J. Conway to out do Purdy which openedon November 7, 1853, three days before Purdy's production reached its 100th performance; advertised as "The only just and sensible dramatic version of Mrs. Stowe's book." Furthermore: "It does not foolishly and unjustly elevate the Negro above the white man in intellect or morals. It exhibits a true picture of Negro life in teh South, instead of absurdly representing the ignorant slave as possessed of all the polish of the drawing room, and the refinement of the educated whites. An instead of turnging away the audience in tears, teh author has wisely consulted dramatic taste by having Virtue triumphant at last, and after all its unjust sufferings, miseries and deprivations, conducted to happiness by the hand of Him who watches over all."

102: January 16, 1854, T.D. Daddy Rice appeared as Uncle Tom in a minstrel show at the Bowery Theater;

European productions in London, Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin, Manchester, Dublin, Glasgow; French version had curious geography: to Canada by going down the Ohio and shooting the falls of Niagara;

Howards played Boston, Baltimore, Washington, St. Louis; local productions: "No play, before or since, swept across America in such prairie-fire fashion."

102-103: after Civil War, tomming began in earnest again in the 1870s; 1879-49 companies; 1899, some 500 companies; a dozen companies still at it in 1927; Mason brothers in their 57th season in 1927;

notes the NY revival in 1933 with Otis Skinner; "Small House of Uncle Thomas" in the King and I.

103: Movies: Edwin S. Porter's 1903 version for the Edison company; early 1920s spectacular produced by Carl Laemmle, 19 months, $2 million dollars, 977,000 feet of film, 65 different sets, 5,000 players, 10,000 artificial magnolias."

argues that "Mrs. Stowe's and thus Aiken's dramtic narrative may not bear up even under the tames critical scrutiny. The writing is undistinguished, much of it even careless."

ends with prompt book detailing extravagant way in which Tom was transported to Heaven in one production, after arguing that the play gave latitude to actors to extract audience response through exercise of theatrical immagination.