Slavery and Abolitionists
Promotional tour postcard distributed by Haverly's California Theater, San Francisco, 1882-3
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Collection
"ELIZA: Powers of mercy, protect me! How shall I escape these human
bloodhounds? Ah! The window -- the river of ice! That dark stream
lies between me and liberty! Surely the ice will bear my trifling
weight. It is my only chance of escape -- better sink beneath the
cold waters, with my child locked in my arms, than to have him
torn from me and sold into bondage. He sleeps upon my breast --
heaven, I put my trust in thee!"
— George L. Aiken, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) Act I, sc. 4
Playwright George Aiken's version of Uncle Tom's Cabin
focused, as did most adaptations of the novel, on the three main
melodramatic episodes -- the escape by Eliza and her baby from the
slave hunters, the fatal beating of Tom, and the death and
apotheosis of Little Eva. This promotional postcard, from a
post-Civil War troupe, shows Eliza fleeing the bloodhounds. The
reverse of the card listed the tour schedule.