About this Event

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an anti-slavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in response to the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Written in 1852, it became the best-selling literary work of the 19th century and caused a transatlantic cultural shift in attitudes about slavery. Hammett Billings’ six illustrations included in the first edition created global entertainment and catapulted the novel to iconic status.

Join Professor Robyn Phillips-Pendleton to explore how the illustrator’s interpretive imagery influenced adaptations and transmediation of the novel that helped advance viewpoints on race, gender and economic class and instigate a war that forever changed a nation.

Robyn Phillips-Pendleton is a professor of Visual Communications in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Delaware. She is an illustrator, visual storyteller, designer, lecturer, curator and United States Air Force artist. Phillips-Pendleton has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Her written research focuses on the history of illustration and the influence of published imagery on perceptions of race.

This in-person event is part of our Scholar in the Library series. It is free and open to the public.

Event attendees are asked to register.