In the era of Rush Limbaugh and a historic presidency, racism is a timely and controversial issue. People have a hard time examining their own racial biases. The biggest obstacle is not understanding racism, but rather being able to open up the heart of prejudice to show how their prejudice affects more than just those they stereotype. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs wrote stories to abolish slavery while appealing to the emotions of their audiences. Their writings all helped speed the abolition process, but some books used different methods. The stories of Douglass and Jacobs depict the graphic horrors of slavery while extolling the importance of education as a tool for freedom. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a sentimentalist novel that included and undermined some of the stereotypes and assumptions made by Stowe's white audiences. Although some may argue that the subtlety of the novel failed to convince that slavery was wrong, it managed to become popular due to people's reaction to its controversial content. Stowe's novel was the bestseller of the 19th century because it used the subtle strategies that fiction has to appeal to its audience. Stowe wrote based on audience interests, such as good morals and empathetic characters. While Douglass and Jacobs had to stick to the facts, Stowe could create compelling plots and engaging characters that audiences could sympathize and criticize towards due to the detailed explanation of their thoughts and emotions. On the other hand, Jacobs and Douglass could not accept such creative license. The freedom of a work of fiction allows for creativity and the ability to create interesting plots, however, this is different...... middle of paper ....creating fiction, Stowe would have understood better societal norms. The popularity of his texts suggests that 19th-century Americans were unprepared to see characters whose traits ran counter to those commonly accepted. Many Americans have been threatened by objective accounts of graphic incidents. Because of their race and the lack of credibility associated with their race, Jacobs and Douglass' audience was limited to a progressive group of abolitionists. In contrast, Stowe managed to engage a wide range of viewers in a process of understanding the large number of people affected by slavery. Without the constraints of nonfiction, Stowe was able to direct his novel toward the public. Abraham Lincoln called her "the little lady who started the Civil War" because she wrote an article that appealed to his white audience..