Let’s spice up history class.

Join the Stowe Center for Literary Activism for Hot for Beecher, a lively interview-style program where scholarship meets serious heat. Director of Historic Collections Cat White and guest scholar Dr. Tess Chakkalakal will take on increasingly spicy hot wings (cauliflower available for vegans!) while answering questions about members of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s remarkable family.

This installment turns the spotlight on Calvin E. Stowe—Harriet Beecher Stowe’s husband, a professor, translator, and unexpectedly whimsical partner whose letters reveal humor, affection, and intellectual partnership.

Come for the history, stay for the heat, and discover the personalities behind one of America’s most influential literary families.

Dr. Tess Chakkalakal

Cat White

About the Facilitators

Dr. Tess Chakkalakal is Professor of Africana Studies and English at Bowdoin College. She successfully campaigned for the renovation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s residence at Bowdoin where she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Dr. Chakkalakal is the author of Novel Bondage: Slavery, Marriage, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America (2011), A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt (2025) among others, and the executive producer and co-host of the award-winning podcast “Dead Writers.” 

Cat White is the Director of Historic Collections at the Stowe Center for Literary Activism.