IN PERSON | Afro-Caribbean Roots of Spiritualism

Talk

Spirits at Stowe

Lecture with Dr. Tracey Hucks

October 28, 2023

Portrait of Tracey Hucks, Provost and Dean of the Faculty; James A. Storing Professor of Religion and Africana & Latin American Studies, taken at Chapel House, February 15, 2018.
Mark DiOrio / Colgate University

Dr. Tracey Hucks is professor of Theology at Harvard University. Dr. Hucks has written extensively about the Afro-Caribbean roots of spiritualism. Her book, Obeah, Orisa, and Religious Identity in Trinidad, vol. 1, explores the nuanced differences among Caribbean religious practices and how those practices have changed over time. The chapter “Obeah, Piety, and Poison in The Slave Son,” specifically looks at Black diasporic religious practices in the books Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and The Slave Son, by Marcella Wilkins. Dr. Hucks argues that Stowe, through the character of Uncle Tom, sought to present enslaved people sympathetically, and therefore downplayed Afro-Caribbean aspects of their religious and spiritual practices. Wilkins, on the other hand, represented the obeah religion more extensively in her characters, contributing to a more threatening view of enslaved people.

Through this analysis, Dr. Hucks develops the links between Afro-Caribbean religious practices and Spiritualism in the 19^th century, and illuminates how race, social status, and gender influenced Spiritualist practices. Dr. Hucks will present a lecture on her research followed by an audience Q & A.

Location Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Katharine Seymour Day House

Doors Open 4:15 pm

Program 4:30 - 6:00 pm

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2023

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Adult Group Interest Form

Group Tour Interest Form 2022

Thank you so much for your interest in a group tour at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center! Please help us schedule your visit by answering the questions below.

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Are there special accommodations that can help us serve you best?

Are you interested in a joint visit with our neighbor, The Mark Twain House and Museum?

Yes, please.

No, thank you.

If yes, have you already contacted The Mark Twain House?

Yes

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.

Spirits at Stowe

Lecture with Dr. Tracey Hucks

Portrait of Tracey Hucks, Provost and Dean of the Faculty; James A. Storing Professor of Religion and Africana & Latin American Studies, taken at Chapel House, February 15, 2018. Mark DiOrio / Colgate University

Portrait of Tracey Hucks, Provost and Dean of the Faculty; James A. Storing Professor of Religion and Africana & Latin American Studies, taken at Chapel House, February 15, 2018.
Mark DiOrio / Colgate University