Stowe Center for Literary Activism | |
Location | Hartford, Connecticut |
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Coordinates | 41°46′1.14″N72°42′2.81″W / 41.7669833°N 72.7007806°W |
Built | 1871 |
Architectural style | Gothic |
Website | www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org |
Part of | Nook Farm and Woodland Street District (ID79002674) |
NRHP reference No. | 70000710 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 6, 1970 |
Designated NHL | February 27, 2013 |
Designated CP | November 29, 1979 |
The Stowe Center for Literary Activism is a history museum and National Historic Landmark at 73 Forest Street in Hartford, Connecticut that was once the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin . Stowe lived in this house for the last 23 years of her life. It was her family's second home in Hartford. The 5,000 sq ft (460 m2) cottage-style house is located adjacent to the Mark Twain House and is open to the public. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and declared a National Historic Landmark in 2013. [2]
The Stowe House is a two-story brick building, painted gray, resting on a brick foundation. Although the house is basically rectangular, it has a complex roof, with a jerkin-headed gable running parallel to the street, a hip-roof extension to the rear, and small dormers flanking a central dormer flush to the front facade. The gables are decorated with bargeboard, and the eaves have Italianate brackets. The interior of the house follows a fairly conventional center hall plan, with two parlors, dining room, kitchen, and pantry on the first floor, and bedrooms on the second. [3] Though Harriet Beecher Stowe and her family had previously lived in several other homes, Oakholm was the first constructed specifically for them. [4]
Harriet Beecher Stowe had been living in Massachusetts with her husband Calvin Ellis Stowe, who taught at the Andover Theological Seminary. When Calvin gave his resignation, effective in August 1863, Harriet set to work preparing their first home in Hartford. Fluctuating costs caused by the American Civil War made the project difficult but Harriet enjoyed supervising the work. She wrote to her publisher James T. Fields, "I go every day to see it—I am busy with drains sewers sinks digging trenching—& above all with manure!—You should see the joy with which I gaze on manure heaps to which the eye of faith sees Delaware grapes & D'Angouleme pears & all sorts of roses & posies". [4] She named the building "Oakholm". [4] The home was complete enough that, by May 1, 1864, she wrote, "I came here a month ago to hurry on the preparations for our house, in which I am now writing, in the high bow-window of Mr. Stowe's study, overlooking the wood and river. We are not moved in yet, only our things, and the house presents a scene of the wildest chaos, the furniture having been tumbled in and lying boxed and promiscuous." [5]
By 1873, however, Oakholm became too expensive to maintain, and the Stowes sold the house and moved to this home on Forest Street. [6] The home was originally built by Franklin Chamberlin, who had also sold the adjacent land to Mark Twain upon which the Mark Twain House was built. [7]
Stowe remained in the home for the last 23 years of her life. Among the works she published while living here was Pogunuc People (1878). [8] She maintained an active career; in addition to her writing, she also embarked on two lecture tours while living in the house. She also pushed for support of the local Wadsworth Atheneum and assisted in establishing the Hartford Art School, now part of the University of Hartford. [9]
Stowe died in her upstairs bedroom in the house in 1896 with several of her children, her sister Isabella Beecher Hooker, and other family members at her side. [10]
"The Stowe Center for Literary Activism preserves and interprets Stowe’s Hartford home and the Center’s historic collections, promotes vibrant discussion of her life and work, and inspires commitment to social justice and positive change." [11] (Mission Statement of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center)
After Harriet Beecher Stowe's death in 1896, the property was sold out of the family. It was reacquired by her grandniece, Katharine Seymour Day, in 1924. Day, who had known the family of Mark Twain as a girl, also acquired the neighboring Mark Twain House and saved it from development in 1929. [12] Day bequeathed her Hartford properties to a foundation dedicated to Stowe's legacy. Now known as the Stowe Center for Literary Activism, officially founded in 1941, [8] this organization carefully restored the property in 1965–68, and now operates it as a historic house museum. [3] It was first opened to the public in 1968. [13] The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and declared a National Historic Landmark in 2013. [2] Today, guided tours are offered to the public, and the house includes original family furnishings and memorabilia. [14] Annual visitation is over 25,000. [15]
In addition to the Stowe House, the Center manages an 1873 carriage house, which now serves as the visitor's center, and the Katharine Seymour Day House (1884). The Stowe Center preserves the house and center's collections, with a research library that includes letters and documents from the family. The collections include an estimated 6,000 objects and over 200,000 manuscripts, books, photographs, and other materials. [15] The site is part of the Connecticut Women's Heritage Trail. [16]
Stowe Center for Literary Activism annually awards a prize to a U.S. author whose work is deemed to have affected a critical social issue in the tradition of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin . [17] Recipients include:
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 census. Hartford is the most populous city in the Capitol Planning Region and the core city of the Greater Hartford metropolitan area.
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was an American author and abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by enslaved African Americans. The book reached an audience of millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and in Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings as well as for her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.
Catharine Esther Beecher was an American educator known for her forthright opinions on female education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of kindergarten into children's education. She published the advice manual The American Woman's Home with her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1869. Some sources spell her first name as "Catherine".
Isabella Beecher Hooker was a leader, lecturer and social activist in the American suffragist movement.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is a historic home in Cincinnati, Ohio which was once the residence of influential antislavery author Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Olivia Langdon Clemens was the wife of the American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known under his pen name Mark Twain.
Reverend Joseph Hopkins Twichell was a writer and Congregational minister from Hartford, Connecticut. He was a close friend of writer Mark Twain for over forty years and is believed to be the model for the character "Harris" in A Tramp Abroad.
Mark Twain: The Musical is a stage musical biography of Mark Twain that had a ten-year summertime run in Elmira, NY and Hartford, CT (1987–1995) and was telecast on a number of public television stations. An original cast CD was released by Premier Recordings in 1988, and LML Music in 2009 issued a newly mastered and complete version of the score. Video and DVD versions of the show are currently in release.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is a historic home and National Historic Landmark at 63 Federal Street in Brunswick, Maine, notable as a short-term home of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Calvin Ellis Stowe and where Harriet wrote her 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Earlier, it had been the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a student. It is today owned by Bowdoin College. A space within the house, called Harriet's Writing Room, is open to the public.
The Katharine Seymour Day House is a historic house at 77 Forest Street in the historic Nook Farm district of Hartford, Connecticut. Built in 1884 for a local businessman seeking to compete stylistically with the adjacent Mark Twain House, it is a good local example of Queen Anne architecture. It now serves as the administrative center and library for the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
The parish of St. John's Episcopal Church, Hartford, Connecticut, was formed in 1841. Its first building, designed by Henry Austin (architect), was constructed on Main Street just south of the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1842. The parish left Hartford in 1907 and is now St. John's Episcopal Church.
The house at 36 Forest Street, sometimes called the Burton House in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, is a wooden Shingle Style structure built in the late 19th century and largely intact today. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Margaret Warner Morley was an American educator, biologist, and author of many children's books on nature and biology.
The Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, was the home of Samuel Langhorne Clemens and his family from 1874 to 1891. The Clemens family had it designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter and built in the American High Gothic style. Clemens biographer Justin Kaplan has called it "part steamboat, part medieval fortress and part cuckoo clock."
Elizabeth Jarvis Colt was the widow and heir of firearms manufacturer Samuel Colt, founder of Colt's Manufacturing Company.
Katharine Seymour Day was an American preservationist from Hartford, Connecticut. She worked as a member of the Hartford City Planning Commission to preserve historic homes in Connecticut and helped establish the Children’s Museum of Hartford and the home of Mark Twain as a memorial. She served as president of the Mark Twain Library and Memorial Commission. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 1994. The Katharine Seymour Day House has been preserved as part of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House Museum.
Thomas Clap Perkins was an American lawyer and politician.
John Hooker (1816–1901) was an American lawyer, judge, and abolitionist as well as a reformer for women's rights. He married Isabella Beecher Hooker in 1841 and lived in Farmington and Hartford, Connecticut.
Nook Farm is a historical neighborhood in the Asylum Hill section on the western edge of Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
The John and Isabella Hooker House is a historic house at 140 Hawthorn Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Built in the 1850s and twice enlarged, it is a distinctive and large example of Italianate country villa architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.