The Stowe Society » Stowe Center

Stowe Center to Inaugurate Stowe Prize

Andrea Holliger-Soles — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:02:57 +0000

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center will inaugurate the Stowe Prize in 2011, a landmark initiative for the Bicentennial celebration of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s birth.

The Stowe Prize will be a $10,000 biennial award to an individual from the United States whose written work embodies the tradition and impact of Stowe’s most famous work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by making a tangible impact on a social justice issue critical to contemporary society.

Submissions must be postmarked by June 1, 2010. The Stowe Prize winner will be announced in March 2011, with an award ceremony in June 2011.

To propose a nominee, contact StowePrize@StoweCenter.org. Self-nominations are accepted.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center to Receive Federal Funding

Andrea Holliger-Soles — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:22:34 +0000

October 30, 2009, Hartford, CT ….Today, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center received news from the offices of Congressman John B. Parson and Senators Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman that it will receive funding in a bill approved by both houses under the Interior Appropriations Act.

Katherine Kane, executive director of the Stowe Center, commented:

“I am delighted to learn that the US House of Representatives and Senate have approved $150,000 for the Stowe Center’s preservation initiative. This important support protects and preserves Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Hartford home, furnishings and the family’s manuscripts, as we connect Stowe’s life and impact to contemporary American issues. As the nation prepares to mark the bicentennial of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s birth in 2011, the Stowe Center thanks Congressman John B. Larson, and Senators Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman. “

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is an international heritage tourist attraction in Hartford, Connecticut. Its mission is to preserve and interpret Stowe’s Hartford home and the Center’s historic collections, promote vibrant discussion of her life and work, and inspire commitment to social justice and positive change.

The Center’s collections create a foundation for experiences that inspire audiences, including

Themed tours of Stowe’s home and the Center.
Salons at Stowe – a 21^st-century parlor conversation on contemporary issues.
School programs and exhibits

The Center’s collections include materials in the Stowe Center Research Library, used by scholars, public historians and students, including two Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers.

Stowe Center Collections Preservation Project

Andrea Holliger-Soles — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:13:27 +0000

A year ago the Stowe Center embarked on a renovation project of the library and archives vault, an underground storage facility built in 1973 that houses the Center’s extensive manuscript, print, photograph, broadside, poster and media collections. Funded by the National Endowment for Humanities and the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the goal of this Collections Preservation project is to safeguard the historic collections. Improvements to the vault include installing fire suppression, upgrading climate control and expanding collections storage capacity with compact storage equipment. This will improve conditions for the items already stored in the vault and concentrate the most environmentally vulnerable pieces in the best storage space. The project is scheduled to be completed by October 2010, when the library and archives materials will once again be available for research. Please visit the Stowe Center’s website for project updates. The finding aides and catalog, as well as the artifact collection and the Kirkham Collection of Stowe letters are accessible during this period. Contact Collections Manager Beth Giard (860-522-9258 ext. 313) for more information.

E. Bruce Kirkham Collection, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

Andrea Holliger-Soles — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:10:43 +0000

In 2007, the Stowe Center opened an extensive new resource to researchers: the Kirkham Collection of annotated Harriet Beecher Stowe letters. Generously donated by E. Bruce Kirkham, the Collection consists of copies of Stowe letters (1822-1886) gathered over many years from various collections, notebooks of Dr. Kirkham’s research, correspondence, clippings, microfilm, an electronic database of the annotated letters (1822-1895) and Dr. Kirkham’s text for a planned book of Stowe letters. Because many of the letters are the property of other collections, and due to the terms of the donation, various legal restrictions shape how the collection can be made accessible. As one of the outcomes of the 2011 Stowe Bicentennial, the Stowe Center would like to build a plan to publish at least some portion of Stowe’s letters. This collection would be the basis of that work. Contact Katherine Kane, Executive Director (860.522.5258×310), for further information.

The Collection is now available at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Library (even though the rest of the Stowe Center Library is in off-site storage during the Collections Preservation Project). The Collection cannot be digitally transferred or emailed, and can only be referenced or published in part. Material from the Collection may be reproduced with written permission from the appropriate libraries and the Stowe Center. Schedule an appointment Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Call or email Collections Manager Beth Giard (860-522-9258 ext. 313) for more information.

Celebrating Stowe’s Bicentennial

Andrea Holliger-Soles — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:59:41 +0000

In 2011 the Stowe Society will join with the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in celebrating Harriet Beecher Stowe’s two hundredth birthday. The year will mark the first time the Stowe Society and the Stowe Center have collaborated on programming. The year’s highlights will include a birthday celebration on 14 June 2011 at the Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut, and the Stowe Society’s first national conference at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, directed by Tess Chakkalakal, secretary of the Stowe Society, who is an assistant professor in Africana Studies at Bowdoin.

All the sites that played a significant role in Stowe’s life will be part of the celebration, including Hartford, Connecticut; Brunswick, Maine; Cincinnati, Ohio; and New York City.

The Stowe Society also hopes that the bicentennial will stimulate interest in two major scholarly enterprises related to the author: the launch of a Stowe Society journal as either a print publication or an e-journal, and work towards the long overdue publication of Stowe’s letters, building on the E. Bruce Kirkham Collection of her letters available at the Stowe Center. Others have expressed interest in a PBS-style film on Stowe, perhaps by an independent production company.