DRED:A TALE OF THE DISMALSWAMP.WAS PUBLISHED IN 1856,FOUR YEARS after the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s wildly popular abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Although nowhere as popular as her first novel, Dred was nevertheless read by thousands, and even surpassed Uncle Tom’s Cabin in preliminary sales. The racial politics of Stowe’s second abolitionist novel are more overt and revolutionary. Perhaps this explains why white readers found the novel less appealing than Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Contemporary reviews found the book less persuasive, more didactic, and the title character a bit of a bore. Since then Stowe scholars have made similar critiques (Korobkin 3982 ; Whitney 553). What has been largely overlooked and unremarked, however, is Stowe’s scathing depiction of “poor whites.” This article seeks to rectify this oversight by examining the depiction of the white working class found in Dred. I argue that the lack of a serious discussion on this oppressed Southern population is troubling on several counts. First, Stowe expends considerable energy and time to include poor white characters in her novel. Why has this failed to spark discussion? Stowe’s mischaracterizations and stereotypes of poor whites have so far failed to spark serious discussion because those mischaracterizations and stereotypes continue to operate today...