Katherine Kane - Harriet Becher Stowe Center

www.HarrietBeecherStowe.org

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center uses Stowe’s story to inspire social justice and positive change.

Harriet Beecher Stowe House

2012 1884

Slide template

Katharine Day House, 1884

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Chapter 34

Collection14,000 books,

periodicals, pamphlets, broadsides

180,000 manuscripts: correspondence, diaries, journals, manuscripts

12,000 photographs, prints, drawings

6,000 artifacts

3 historic buildings

New York City

Boston

Hartford

Chicago

Miami

Who was Harriet Beecher Stowe?

• 1811-1896• Best selling author 30

books, 4 antislavery• Uncle Tom’s Cabin• International fame• Subject of two Pulitzer

winning biographies

Lyman Beecher & his children

Cincinnati Ohio

Litchfield CT

Hartford CT

Brunswick ME

Andover MA

Mandarin FL

Becoming a writer

Marriage & family

Children

Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the National Era

USA:

10,000 books in first week

300,000 first year

Britain: 1,500,000 first year

70 languages

Swedish 1925, 1963; Russian mid 20th c; Spanish (Mexico) 1963

Why did Stowe write Uncle

Tom’s Cabin?

• Personal

• Political

Uncle Tom’s Cabin storyline

• Tom • Eliza • George Harris• Topsy• St. Clair• Little Eva • Aunt Ophelia • Simon Legree

• Changed attitudes in US before Civil War• Made abolition main stream• Popular culture• Changed theatre• Anti-toms• Fomented revolution• Uncle Tom became a racial slur

Uncle Tom’s Cabin impact

Uncle Tom

1853 1890s

Smith’s Double

Mammoth

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Theatre broadside 1890s

Stowe’s Hartford

home

• Contemporary issues that tie to Stowe’s ---race, gender, inequity

• Conversation & storytelling, not lecture

• Catalyst and convener

• Call to action

• Safe place to talk about hard things

Program Framework

Some Stowe Center programs

Salons

Stowe Prize

24 hour reading

Public & school tours

Community open houseExhibits

Paths to Change

Role playing

Salons at Stowe

Inspiration to Action

• Human trafficking • Women in politics• Race and gender in politics• Literacy and the schools• Equalizing access to health care• Is prison the new slavery?• How to be an advocate• Poverty--is the American dream broken?

Salon Topics

Imitation

Revenue

Relationships

Word of mouth

Action

Impact

Weekly “re-release” on web over a year

24 hour reading Webcast

Video testimony

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Programs

Stowe Prize

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn for Half the Sky: Overcoming Oppression of Women Worldwide

Call to Action: A conversation on race

& social justice