When Harriet Beecher Stowe researched the experience of slavery while writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she wrote Frederick Douglass and asked him to recount his own memories as a slave. This letter to Douglass and many other manuscripts of special interest to researchers in 19th century history are available for study in the Stowe Center Library. The Library, with a collection of over 12,000 books, 4,000 pamphlets, and 180,000 manuscript items, as well as 12,000 photographs, prints, and other images concentrates on 19th century women’s history, the Stowe and Beecher families, 19th century African-American history, and on Victorian architecture and the decorative arts.
The library is located in the Katharine Seymour Day House, next to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s residence in Hartford. Katharine Day, Stowe’s grandniece and famous in her own right as an artist, preservationist and philanthropist, established the library and museum and provided a core collection. Since then, the collections have grown as the Stowe Center collected materials related to the world in which Harriet Beecher Stowe was such a major figure.
Anyone who questions Harriet Beecher Stowe’s importance in 19th century history, in the women’s movement, and in the abolitionist cause, need only look at the 26 volumes of petitioning signatures that Stowe brought back from a visit to Britain shortly after publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Filled with names of British women moved by her portrayal of slavery, the volumes fill more than a dozen shelves in the Stowe Center storage vault. This large, climate-controlled storage area houses the bulk of the Stowe Center Library, including an extensive collection of editions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The most treasured edition, of course, is the first printed book edition. The modest, and plain appearance of this edition belies its great influence on American history.
Besides the various editions of Stowe’s most famous work, the Library has first editions of Stowe’s other works, as well as interpretation, criticism, and a variety of 19th century publications written in response (both pro and con) to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Other publications trace the 18th and 19th century attitudes toward African-Americans, and recount the abolitionist struggle during those years.
Though known for her work on behalf of the abolitionist cause, Stowe and her sisters and friends were active in many important women’s issues of the day. The Stowe Center Library is particularly strong in material related to 19th century women’s history. Among the material available at the center are books, letters, and manuscripts from: the founder of the Hartford Female Seminary Catherine Beecher; the founder of the New England Woman Suffrage Association Isabella Beecher Hooker; the Civil War nurse Margaret Foote Hawley; the freed fugitive slave and abolitionist Harriet Ann Jacobs; the children’s library pioneer Caroline Hewins; and the poet Lydia Huntley Sigourney. The Center also has extensive correspondence from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Various members of the Beecher family, such as Harriet’s father Lyman Beecher and brother Henry Ward Beecher, played major roles in the intellectual and social history of the time. The Stowe Center Library has hundreds of letters, manuscripts of sermons and lectures, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other documents that help researchers examine the world in which the Beecher family lived and worked. Other famous Hartford families of the period are represented in the collections, including the Hookers, Footes, and Gillettes. Of particular note is the outstanding collection of letters, manuscripts, typescripts, and play scripts of the actor and playwright William H. Gillette. The Stowe Center continues to receive collections donations from the various descendants of the Beecher and other famous Hartford families.
As seems appropriate for a library housed in a beautiful Victorian building, the Stowe Center Library has collections of research materials for the study of Victorian architecture and design. The holdings include architectural journals, builders manuals, manufacturer’s catalogues, and samples of wallpapers, stenciling, and carpeting. There are original drawings, elevations, and plans from local architects, including George Keller, Hartford’s leading architect of the period.
As Collections Manager, Elizabeth Giard is the gateway to the varied collections at the Stowe Center Library. Giard maintains the collections, does the cataloging and indexing, helps with acquisitions and donations, and provides reference assistance. She will provide a limited amount of research via mail, phone, or email.
Though Giard has already started digitizing parts of the collections, she is exploring ways to expand collection digitization. Currently parts of the collection are represented in the University of Virginia’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture” web resource
( http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc/ ), and the book collection is represented in the iCONN reQuest catalog. Giard also assists with the exhibition of parts of the collection in the Stowe Center and elsewhere. The collections are used largely by graduate students and writers/researchers, as well as some high school and college students.
Located at 77 Forest Street in Hartford, the library is open to the public by appointment Monday through Friday. All collections are non-circulating. For more information call Elizabeth Giard at 860-522-9258 ext. 313 or visit the website at http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/collections/ .
An edited version of this article appeared previously in Connecticut Libraries.
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