41. Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist, meaning that she was part of the struggle to end the enslavement of black people in the United States. At a time when many girls did not learn to read, she received an education comparable to that of males, an opportunity that undoubtedly shaped her later literary success. In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which became a call to arms for many Northern abolitionists who sought the end of slavery. Throughout this era, she was one of the leading abolitionists and even had an audience with President Abraham Lincoln, certainly a distinction for a woman in the nineteenth century.