Name Change Reflects Focus for the Future, and Honoring of the Past

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center announces a name change. Moving forward, the organization will be known as the Stowe Center for Literary Activism.

“The Stowe Center for Literary Activism is a social justice museum and a community hub celebrating the ongoing advocacy of hope and freedom,” said Karen Fisk, Executive Director. “Taking action to inspire change can take many forms—at the Stowe Center for Literary Activism we focus on creativity that intentionally aims to change hearts and minds. That is literary activism.”

The Stowe Center for Literary Activism’s mission is to encourage social justice and literary activism by exploring the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe and all who advocate hope and freedom then and now. “We envision a world in which engagement leads to empathy, empowerment, and positive change,” Fisk said.

Hartford resident and internationally best-selling author Harriet Beecher Stowe was a unique and powerful example of the American legacy of literary activism. She leveraged her remarkable ability to change hearts and minds by the careful, intentional use of words to expose the violence of slavery and to advocate for its end.

As a woman in the 19th century, Stowe had no vote and no public voice. She used the skills she honed through writing salons and parlor and front porch conversations to take action in the way society allowed: by writing a novel. Not just any novel, but a story so carefully crafted to evoke emotion that it took the world by the heart. Uncle Tom’s Cabin became an international best seller and galvanized the anti-slavery movement among white people.

Stowe then took a step further and did something wholly unique: When she heard that some readers and critics believed she exaggerated the violence of slavery, Stowe compiled A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to document all the writings, conversations, and stories she had used to write her novel. These accounts, written and told by Black people, corroborated and exceeded the stories Stowe told. This remarkable, unique act of literary activism held up a constellation of important Black voices, each with their own powerful story of agency.

“The United States has a unique history of literary activism, most notably evidenced by emancipation narratives, also known as slave narratives,” said Erika Slocumb, Director of Interpretation and Visitor Experience. “Josiah Henson, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs and John Andrew Jackson among many other powerful Black abolitionists, advocated hope and freedom through their written accounts and speaking tours. They advocated for freedom and education and took action to make change, in order to establish enfranchisement, not only their generation but all the generations to come.”

The Stowe Center not only looks to the past to celebrate the advocacy of hope and freedom, but also continues to shine a light on literary activism today. The Stowe Prize for Literary Activism recently awarded its 10th prize to Dr. Bettina L. Love for her book Punished for Dreaming: How Education Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal.

The Stowe Center Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Michael Mallery said of Dr. Love’s book: “In Punished for Dreaming, Dr. Love masterfully dismantles the illusion of reform in our education system, revealing how policies often perpetuate the very injustices they purport to eradicate.” Speaking to the book’s call to action, Mallery said: “With piercing clarity, she exposes the harsh realities faced by Black children in schools, compelling us to confront the uncomfortable truth that educational reform has frequently marginalized their voices and dreams. This is not merely a book; it is a manifesto for justice, challenging educators, policymakers, and society at large to reevaluate our commitment to equity and healing.”

Dr. Bettina L. Love is the 10th recipient of the Stowe Prize, following

Dr. Ruha Benjamin in 2023 for Viral Justice
Dr. Clint Smith in 2022 for How the Word Is Passed
Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr. in 2021 for Begin Again
Albert Woodfox in 2020 for Solitary
Matthew Desmond in 2018 for Evicted
Bryan Stevenson in 2017 for Just Mercy
Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2015 for The Case for Reparations
Michelle Alexander in 2013 for The New Jim Crow
and Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn in 2011 for Half the Sky.

MORE ABOUT THE CENTER
The Stowe Center for Literary Activism is a museum like no other. We offer history tours, not house tours, in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Hartford home that explore the life and legacy of Stowe as well as those people who created the ecosystem of abolitionism that helped to counter chattel slavery. Our tours help visitors better understand systems of oppression and systems of activism that have existed over time and persist today.

The Stowe Center for Literary Activism also offers an array of intersectional explorations of literary activism through programing such as our reading group, Reading for Change and our Salons at Stowe, which this year will feature a series focused on the topic of the Stowe Prize winner: Education equity.

“Literary activism open up so many possibilities that we are excited to explore. Programs that center around literary activism include reading discussions, working with the arts, bringing in the best scholars, and more,” said Cat White, Director of Collections and Public Programs. “Additionally, we can explore a variety of topics under the umbrella of literary activism. This year, for instance, we will explore justice in education with topics such as Puerto Rican history, the often controversial history sex education with a focus on inclusivity, and the history and current state of Deaf education, to add to the conversation Dr. Love offers with her remarkable book Punished for Dreaming. I am also excited to work with scholars, community, and colleagues to revisit our collection materials with a new interpretive lens.”

By bringing the past into the present through discussion, the Stowe Center for Literary Activism engages in difficult conversations to better understand history and the present as well as build toward a better future. Civic engagement, literary activism, social justice, and historic contextualization help us better understand the systems that create and support oppression and also those systems that cooperate to dismantle it.

Because we continue to struggle with issues today that Stowe and those who influenced her wrote to protest in the 19th century, the relevance of our mission remains urgent.

BACKGROUND
The Stowe Center for Literary Activism, formerly the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, opened in 1968 as one of the first U.S. historic house museums dedicated to a woman and to stories of African American history. Over time the museum has evolved to become a center focused on social justice and literary activism, exploring the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe and all who advocate hope and freedom then and now. For general information and updates, visit www.HarrietBeecherStoweCenter.org.

MEDIA INQUIRIES
For interview requests or more information, please contact Communications Manager, Christina Tom at CTom@StoweCenter.org or 860-522-9258 ext. 305.

Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.

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