katherine kane - harriet becher stowe center
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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