Be inspired by the woman whose words changed the world.

Mission

The Stowe Center encourages social justice and literary activism by exploring the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe and all who advocate hope and freedom then and now.

Vision

We envision a world in which engagement leads to empathy, empowerment, and change for good.

Guiding Principles

The Stowe Center’s strength is connecting the past to the present and future together with discerning, inspired, and empowered communities. As in the days when Stowe and her neighbors met to discuss, debate, and write about issues, our staff, partners, volunteers, and visitors work together in dialog and discussion to better understand our current world and build toward a better future through inquiry, empathy, and compassion. Our ongoing interpretation, preservation, research, educational opportunities, and programing at the Stowe Center strives to create a welcoming, accessible, and inclusive platform for exploring important ideas together. We realize that true inclusion requires constant assessment and evolution in conversation with others so that we can all do better.

We treat each other and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s life and work with respect, scrutinizing all with many points of view, and inclusive of all people no matter where they are in their evolution of understanding. We listen with open minds and hearts. We use our opportunities for engagement to work for justice.

We acknowledge histories of colonialism, slavery, and white supremacy that influenced Stowe and the historic culture of this museum. We strive to shine a light on bias and inequity in order to build a stronger Stowe Center defined by social justice and literary activism. We strive to exemplify diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

We preserve and share our historical collections and archives to examine the primary documents and cultural legacy of Stowe’s intellectual, social, and domestic life. We emphasize the use of primary sources to demonstrate the relevance of history connected to activism, systemic bias and racism, and evolving ideas of social justice.

Truth emerges in communication and open, respectful discussion with many diverse people and institutions. We value nurturing relationships that challenge our thinking and open pathways to transformation. We adhere to the idea that our liberation is bound each to all, and together we will build the world we want.

Our History

The Stowe Center opened to the public in 1968 as one of the earliest historic house museums focused on women’s history and African American history.

For the ensuing 50 years, we have stayed on the leading edge of historic house interpretation, debuting an immersive social justice tour of the house in 2017. Our goal now is to bring the Stowe Center into the 21st century by focusing on relevance, civic engagement, and social justice through activism in concert with our many communities.

Katharine Seymour Day, Stowe’s great grandniece, established the Center as a place of learning and of preservation. She wanted to ensure a historically accurate space for people to learn the history of the city of Hartford and the state of Connecticut. She hoped visitors would know better the lives of Hartford’s leading citizens through the story of her famous aunt. Day also hoped to “furnish instruction and education opportunities to the public in literary, historical and civic subjects, either directly as by lectures, publications, reprints or otherwise.”

The Stowe Center continues to bring the past to the present through programing—tours, lectures, workshops, and discussion groups that directly relate to our exceptional archive collections of nineteenth-century American history related to Stowe, those who influenced her, and her publications, including her most famous work Uncle Tom’s Cabin and her unique act of literary activism: The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which chronicles the many works by Black writers that influenced Stowe.

As we move into the 21st century, we lean into what makes Stowe’s story relevant today. Many of the issues she wrote to protest in the 19th century persist, and our mission is to draw attention to systems of oppression so we can take action to help build an equitable world. Stowe’s literary activism—her decision to try to change hearts and minds with a carefully crafted sentimental novel—had great impact. That impact, for good and ill, continues to reverberate into this century and gives us many topics to explore while also striving to encourage social justice and literary activism for our visitors.

We also lean into the stories of the many people who inspired and influenced both Stowe and the anti-slavery and abolitionist movements of the time. We want to contextualize Stowe and help visitors understand the flow of energy and activism surrounding her. She was not alone in the struggle. Particularly, we are interested in exploring the stories of Josiah Henson, Harriet Jacobs, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglass among others whose memoirs and stories Stowe used to write her novel. Exploring the complexity and nuances of Stowe’s time, we believe, will help us better understand the complexity and nuances of our own time.

The Stowe Center offers onsite tours of Stowe’s home and facilitated discussions with Salons at Stowe, author talks, workshops, and K-12 educational instruction. We present Stowe on the Go: Facilitating Common Ground for Common Good as a social enterprise that brings our museum experience out to organizations.

The Stowe Prize for Literary Acitivism is an annual book prize we award to the book with the greatest social justice impact.

Many of our programs are offered simultaneously as in-person and online experiences. All programs allow time for multiple voices to share thoughts because we believe that positive change emerges from better understanding of each other and our various opinions and beliefs.

At the Stowe Center we recognize that words matter. How we communicate those words also makes the difference between building walls or building connections. We envision a world in which engagement between people leads to empathy, empowerment, and change for good.