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A Failed Uncle Tom's Cabin for the Indian: Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona and the Power of Paratext

A Failed Uncle Tom's Cabin for the Indian: Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona and the Power of Paratext A Failed Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the Indian Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona and the Power of Paratext Kimberly E. Armstrong In an 1883 letter to her publisher about her novel-in-progress, Ramona, Helen Hunt Jackson famously stated that she wished the 1884 novel “would do for the Indian a thousandth part what ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ did for the Negro” (qtd. in Marsden 17). Though the novel was widely read and highly successful, selling more than ten thousand copies in its first ten years of printing, it did not have the lasting cultural impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a protest novel (Tebbel 281). By the 1930s the novel had inspired four film adaptations, a yearly festival, many school and town names, and many other books. Yet by the 1950s the novel was little read. Instead of cultural change, Ramona’s long-term cultural legacy was the creation of a tourist destination and a best seller, which actively worked against the stated protest message, drawing greater and greater numbers of tourists and settlers to the sites of the novel rather than returning those sites to the Native Americans whom Jackson aimed to help. In recent decades literary scholarship has often focused on http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Western American Literature The Western Literature Association

A Failed Uncle Tom's Cabin for the Indian: Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona and the Power of Paratext

Armstrong, Kimberly E.
Western American Literature , Volume 52 (2) – Aug 16, 2017
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Publisher
The Western Literature Association
Copyright
Copyright © The Western Literature Association
ISSN
1948-7142
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Abstract

A Failed Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the Indian Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona and the Power of Paratext Kimberly E. Armstrong In an 1883 letter to her publisher about her novel-in-progress, Ramona, Helen Hunt Jackson famously stated that she wished the 1884 novel “would do for the Indian a thousandth part what ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ did for the Negro” (qtd. in Marsden 17). Though the novel was widely read and highly successful, selling more than ten thousand copies in its first ten years of printing, it did not have the lasting cultural impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a protest novel (Tebbel 281). By the 1930s the novel had inspired four film adaptations, a yearly festival, many school and town names, and many other books. Yet by the 1950s the novel was little read. Instead of cultural change, Ramona’s long-term cultural legacy was the creation of a tourist destination and a best seller, which actively worked against the stated protest message, drawing greater and greater numbers of tourists and settlers to the sites of the novel rather than returning those sites to the Native Americans whom Jackson aimed to help. In recent decades literary scholarship has often focused on

Journal

Western American Literature – The Western Literature Association

Published: Aug 16, 2017

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