Darwin, Emma to Hooker, J. D.
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CD would be pleased to sit for a bust by Thomas Woolner for JDH, but he is too ill now.
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Emma's views on slavery and the Civil War.
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Transcription
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
Dec 26
Dear D
Charles begs me to tell you that nothing w
With Charles & my love to Mrs Hooker & you | I am yours very sincerely | E. D.
About America I think the slaves are gradually getting freed & that is what I chiefly care for. The Times evidently thinks that is to be deplored, but I think all England has to read up Olmsted's works again & get up its Uncle Tom again
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The reference is to the sculptor Thomas Woolner. The letter in which Hooker made this request has not been found. CD did not sit for Woolner until 1868 (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 26 November [1868] (Calendar, no. 6476)). - +
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William Erasmus, George Howard, Francis, Leonard, and Horace Darwin. - +
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Frances Harriet Hooker. - +
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President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which came into effect on 1 January 1863, freed the slaves in those states in rebellion against the Union. The Union forces effectively became armies of liberation (McPherson 1988, pp. 557--8). - +
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The Times had maintained a hostile tone towards the Union cause in its coverage of the American Civil War. CD and Emma had long been unhappy with the newspaper's treatment of the war with regard to slavery (see Correspondence vol. 10, letter to Asa Gray, 16 October [1862], and this volume, letter to Asa Gray, 23 February [1863] and n. 22). - +
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Frederick Law Olmsted wrote a number of accounts of the social and economic conditions of the southern states of America: A journey in the seaboard slave states (Olmsted 1856), A journey through Texas (Olmsted 1857), and A journey in the back country (Olmsted 1860); these accounts were republished as a two-volume work entitled Journeys and explorations in the cotton kingdom (Olmsted 1861). CD had read Olmsted 1856 and 1857 (see Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 23 and 128: 25, and Correspondence vol. 9, letter to Asa Gray, 17 September [1861]). - +
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A reference to Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe's novel entitled Uncle Tom's cabin (Stowe 1852). Stowe's novel, which was popular in Britain, was an influential indictment of slavery (McPherson 1988, pp. 38--9, 88--9).