Tom show is a general term for any play or musical based (often only loosely) on the 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The novel attempts to depict the harsh reality of slavery. Due to the weak copyright laws at the time, a number of unauthorized plays based on the novel were staged for decades, many of them mocking the novel's social message, and leading to the pejorative term "Uncle Tom".

Even though Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, far more Americans of that time saw the story in a stage play or musical than read the book. In 1902, it was reported that a quarter million of these presentations had already been performed in the United States. Some of these shows were essentially minstrel shows that utilized caricatures and stereotypes of black people, and thus inverting the intent of the novel. "Tom shows" were popular in the United States from the 1850s through the early 1900s.

Stage plays based on Uncle Tom's Cabin—"Tom shows"—began to appear while the story itself was still being serialized. These plays varied tremendously in their politics—some faithfully reflected Stowe's sentimentalized antislavery politics, while others were more moderate, or even pro-slavery. A number of the productions also featured songs by Stephen Foster, including "My Old Kentucky Home," "Old Folks at Home," and "Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground."

Stowe herself never authorized dramatization of her work, because of her puritanical distrust of drama (although she did eventually go to see George Aiken's version, and, according to Francis Underwood, was "delighted" by Caroline Howard's portrayal of Topsy). Asa Hutchinson of the Hutchinson Family Singers, whose antislavery politics closely matched those of Stowe, tried and failed to get her permission to stage an official version; her refusal left the field clear for any number of adaptations, some launched for (various) political reasons and others as simply commercial theatrical ventures.

Eric Lott, in his book Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, estimates that at least three million people saw these plays, as many as the novel's worldwide sales. Some of these shows were basically just blackface minstrel shows only loosely based on the novel, and their grossly exaggerated caricatures of black people further perpetuated, for purposes of mockery, some of the stereotypes that Stowe had used more innocently.

All "Tom shows" appear to have incorporated elements of melodrama and blackface minstrelsy.

The first serious attempt at anything like a faithful stage adaptation was a one-hour play by C.W. Taylor at Purdy's National Theater (New York City); it ran for about ten performances in August–September 1852 sharing a bill with a blackface burlesque featuring T.D. Rice. Rice, famous in the 1830s for his comic and clearly racist blackface character Jim Crow, later became the most celebrated actor to play the title role of Tom; when Rice opened in H.E. Stevens play of Uncle Tom's Cabin in January 1854 at New York's Bowery Theatre, the Spirit of the Times' reviewer described him as "decidedly the best personator of negro character who has appeared in any drama."

The best-known "Tom Shows" were those of George Aiken and H.J. Conway.