Harriet Beecher Stowe (edit name/settings)

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on June 14, 1811. She was the middle daughter of three, born to outspoken religious leaderLyman Beecher and Roxana Foote, a deeply religious woman who died when Stowe was only four years old. Her older sister was the educator and author, Catharine Beecher, and her younger sister was Isabella, who married the attorney John Hooker and had a family. They had seven brothers, all of whom became ministers: includingHenry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, and Edward Beecher.

Harriet enrolled in the seminary (girls' school) run by her sister Catharine, where she received a traditionally "male" education in the classics, including study of languages and mathematics. At the age of 21, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to join her father, who had become the president of Lane Theological Seminary.

In 1836 she married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a widower and professor at the seminary who was several years older than she. He was an ardent critic of slavery, and the Stowes supported the Underground Railroad, temporarily housing several fugitive slaves in their home. They had seven children together, including twin daughters.

Reform work

In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, prohibiting assistance to fugitives. Stowe was moved to present her objections on paper, and in June 1851, when she was 40, the first installment of her Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in the antislavery journal National Era. Its emotional portrayal of the impact of slavery captured the nation's attention. It added to the debate about abolition and slavery, and aroused opposition in the South. When asked by a reporter to comment on the nation's reaction to her novel, she is said to have replied, "I only pray that God Almighty shall bring this cruelty to a swift end."

Stowe died on July 1, 1896, at age eighty-five, in Hartford, Connecticut. She is buried in the historic cemetery at Phillips Academy inAndover, Massachusetts.

Landmarks related to Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati, Ohio is the former home of her father Lyman Beecher on the former campus of the Lane Seminary. Her father was a preacher who was greatly affected by the pro-slavery Cincinnati Riots of 1836. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived here until her marriage. It is open to the public and operated as an historical and cultural site, focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Lane Seminary and the Underground Railroad. The site also presents African-American history.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; "><< span>1</sup>

In the 1870s and 1880s, Stowe and her family wintered in Mandarin, Florida, now a suburb of modern consolidated Jacksonville, on the St. Johns River. Stowe wrote Palmetto Leaves while living in Mandarin, arguably an eloquent piece of promotional literature directed at Florida's potential Northern investors at the time.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; "><< span>2</sup> The book was published in 1873 and describes Northeast Florida and its residents. In 1870, Stowe created an integrated school in Mandarin for children and adults. This predated the national movement toward integration by more than a half century. The marker commemorating the Stowe family is located across the street from the former site of their cottage. It is on the property of the Community Club, at the site of a church where Stowe's husband once served as a minister.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Brunswick, Maine is where Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. She and her husband lived here while he worked at Bowdoin College. Although local interest has been strong to preserve the house as a museum, it has long been in private ownership and operated as an inn and German restaurant. It most recently changed ownership in 1999 for $865,000.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Hartford, Connecticut is the house where Stowe lived for the last 23 years of her life. It was next door to the house of fellow author Mark Twain. In this 5,000 sq ft (460 m<sup style="line-height: 1em; ">2</sup>) cottage-style house, there are many of Beecher Stowe's original items and items from the time period. In the research library, which is open to the public, there are numerous letters and documents from the Beecher family. The house is opened to the public and offers house tours on the half hour.

In 1833, during Stowe's time in Cincinnati, the city was afflicted with a serious cholera epidemic. To avoid illness, Stowe made a visit toWashington, Kentucky, a major community of the era just south of Maysville. She stayed with the Marshall Key family, one of whose daughters was a student at Lane Seminary. It is recorded that Mr. Key took her to see a slave auction, as they were frequently held in Maysville. Scholars believe she was strongly moved by the experience. The Marshall Key home still stands in Washington. Key was a prominent Kentuckian; his visitors also included Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.(Calvert and Klee, Towns of Mason County <KY>, LCCN 86-62637, 1986, Maysville and Mason County Library, Historical, and Scientific Association.)