Sewing and Learning Workshop: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Politics of Pocket Purses

Sewing and Learning Workshop

Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Politics of Pocket Purses

December 11, 2021

Employed to compensate for restrictive fashions and to address a range of social and cultural needs, pockets and small bags are a microcosm of complex political, gender, and race history.

In this virtual sewing circle, participants will sew and decorate a replica of a reticule, a kind of pocket purse, while also taking part in learning and conversation, as was common practice in nineteenth-century sewing circles.

The Stowe Center is pleased to welcome three guest experts to this event, including Dr. Shirley Wajda, scholar of protest fashion and Director of The Enfield Shaker Museum, Edjohnetta Miller, internationally-recognized quilt artist, and Rebecca Bayreuther Donohue, historic clothing consultant and designer of the pocket purse pattern used in this program.

The pattern and other materials will be mailed in advance and all will be encouraged to enhance the project with their personal artistry. Participants can share their creation as a friendship gift, or donate it to an activist cause about which they are passionate as part of a broader movement of “craftivism” (creating and making crafts as a form of advocacy and/or resistance).

*Please note: the deadline for mailed materials has passed. Registration remains open for those able to pick up materials on site.*

Pricing is flexible.

Location Virtual

Doors Open 3:00 pm

Program 3:00-5:00 pm

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School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2023

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.

School name:

Please suggest three dates and times when your group would like to visit. (Note: the Stowe Center is closed on Sunday and Tuesday.)

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The Stowe Center requires one adult per every 10 students.

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

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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.

Group Name:

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What date would you like to visit? (The Stowe Center typically books group tours for Thursday through Sunday visits.)

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Please enter a number from 20 to 42.

Please indicate the number of adults, seniors, and children expected in your group:

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.