The 1852 United States presidential election was the 17th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1852. Democrat Franklin Pierce defeated Whig nominee General Winfield Scott. A third party candidate from the Free Soil party, John P. Hale, also ran and came in third place, but got no electoral votes.
Daniel Webster was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the 14th and 19th U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore. Webster was one of the most prominent American lawyers of the 19th century, arguing over 200 cases before the United States Supreme Court in his career. During his life, Webster had been a member of the Federalist Party, the National Republican Party, and the Whig Party. He was among the three members of the Great Triumvirate along with Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was an American author and abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by enslaved African Americans. The book reached an audience of millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and in Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings as well as for her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1852.
The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was a law passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers.
Anti-Tom literature consists of the 19th century pro-slavery novels and other literary works written in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Also called plantation literature, these writings were generally written by authors from the Southern United States. Books in the genre attempted to show that slavery was beneficial to African Americans and that the evils of slavery, as depicted in Stowe's book, were overblown and incorrect.
George Washington Parke Custis was an American plantation owner, antiquarian, author, and playwright. His father John Parke Custis was a stepson of George Washington. He and his sister Eleanor grew up at Mount Vernon and in the Washington presidential household.
The Planter's Northern Bride is an 1854 novel written by Caroline Lee Hentz, in response to the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852.
Timothy Shay Arthur — known as T. S. Arthur — was a popular 19th-century American writer. He is famously known for his temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There (1854), which helped demonize alcohol in the eyes of the American public.
Caroline Lee Whiting Hentz was an American novelist, most noted for her defenses of slavery and opposition to the abolitionist movement. Her widely read The Planter's Northern Bride (1854) was one of the genre known as anti-Tom novels, by which writers responded to Harriet Beecher Stowe's bestselling anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).
Graham's Magazine was a nineteenth-century periodical based in Philadelphia established by George Rex Graham and published from 1840 to 1858. It was alternatively referred to as Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, Graham's Magazine of Literature and Art, Graham's American Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art, and Graham's Illustrated Magazine of Literature, Romance, Art, and Fashion.
John Minor Botts was a nineteenth-century politician, planter and lawyer from Virginia. He was a prominent Unionist in Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War.
Daniel Haymond Polsley was a nineteenth-century lawyer, judge, editor and politician who helped form the State of West Virginia and served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
George Parker Upshur was a career officer in the United States Navy and superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy (1847-1850).
The North and the South; or, Slavery and Its Contrasts is an 1852 plantation fiction novel by Caroline Rush, and among the first examples of the genre, alongside others such as Aunt Phillis's Cabin by Mary Henderson Eastman and Life at the South; or, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" As It Is by W.L.G. Smith, both of which were also released in 1852.
The Cabin and Parlor; or, Slaves and Masters is an 1852 novel by Charles Jacobs Peterson, writing under the pseudonym J. Thornton Randolph.
William Croome (1790–1860) was an American illustrator and wood engraver in the 19th century. He trained with Abel Bowen in Boston, Massachusetts. Croome's work appeared in the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge (1830s), Lady's Annual (1830s), Crockett Almanac (ca.1840s), and in numerous children's books.
Peterson's Magazine (1842–1898) was an American magazine focused on women. It was published monthly and based in Philadelphia.
Henry Peterson was an American editor, novelist, poet, and playwright. He was editor of The Saturday Evening Post for thirty years and owner of H. Peterson & Company publishing firm. He was a member of the Peterson family of publishers including his brother Robert Evans Peterson and his cousin Charles Jacobs Peterson.
