Theater Poster for Uncle Tom’s Cabin

An advertisement for a theatrical production of Uncle Tom's Cabin depicts a scene from the antislavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. In the scene, slave catchers unleash their dogs on the runaway slave Eliza and her child, who are attempting to cross the icebound Ohio River. The best-selling novel inspired countless stage productions during the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This poster from 1881 promotes a staging by the "famous Jarrett & Palmer London Comp'y consolidated with Slavins Original American Troupe."