Harriet's Backyard Campaign

“A Garden is a Place of Healing for the Soul. It would seem as if from the growth of leaves, and flowers, and shrubs, there exhaled a silent dew, which brought comfort to the heart blistered by the paltry suns of life…”

-Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Revelations from Our Gardens Seat” in The Independent, August 9, 1855.

We invite you to show your support for green space and community by making a gift to the Stowe Center for Literary Activism in support of Harriet’s Backyard: From Private to Public. The Stowe Center’s mission is to inspire commitment to social justice and positive change—help us celebrate community by providing a flagship green that is fully accessible and welcoming to all.

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You Can Help Fund Positive Change Today!

Harriet’s Backyard: From Private to Public provides barrier-free solace and ecologically diverse greenspace.

In the spring of 2023, the Stowe Center added three gardens, including a sensory garden and a raised bed vegetable garden, to Two young women sit on a bench together smiling with beautiful flowers from a sensory garden in front of them our urban green with support from a Love Your Block Grant from Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the city of Hartford. In addition we increased our seating ten-fold. In the spring through fall of 2024, we improved our pathways and driveway, with rain water mitigation in mind, and added an outdoor classroom thanks to private donations and state and federal funding.

To our great joy, in the fall of 2024, the Stowe Center received a Community Invested Funds state grant that will cover the cost for a meandering pathway, lights, dog-walking area, seating that facilitates meditation and/or conversation, and accessible signage that helps tell the story of the landscape for all who visit. This funding will bring the Harriet’s Backyard: From Private to Public project close to completion.

Our vision, prompted by community focus groups, is for this space to be a botanical garden and arboretum–a beautiful, memorable, beloved space for people to rest, gather, talk, and/or be still. We continue to seek funding for gardens and trees.

Harriet’s Backyard, we hope, will be understood as everyone’s backyard. And it will represent an ecologically diverse and environmentally sound space for community. It will offer neighbors, tourists, visitors, and staff an outdoor space to gather, relax, play, and reflect. Signage and interactives will also offer opportunities for all to learn about the historic Nook Farm neighborhood and the contemporary landscape.

We invite you to help create an outdoor place of solace accessible to all! It’s supporters like you who make a difference!

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YOU CAN HELP CONNECT THE PAST TO THE PRESENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IMPACT

You can help the Stowe Center with strategic priority projects and programs. Your generosity will make a difference. Your gifts and/or bequests of unrestricted funds will propel the Stowe Center’s mission to inspire commitment to social justice and positive change through vibrant conversations about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s life and legacy. Help us inspire change. MAKE A DIFFERENCE NOW.

Help the Stowe Center with these strategic priorities

Explore the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Constellation of Black voices who influenced her
Expand social justice and literary activism with the Stowe Prize for Literary Activism
Amplify Connecting the Past to the Present with the Historic Collections Digitization Plan
Develop and Deliver Experiences that Inspire Positive Change and Empower Individuals and Communities

You can make a difference with your support of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. More funding opportunities are available. Please contact Casey Grambo, Director of Development, at cgrambo@stowecenter.org.

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2024

Thank you so much for your interest in a group tour at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center! Please help us schedule your visit by answering the questions below.

School name:

Please suggest three dates and times when your group would like to visit. (Note: the Stowe Center is closed on Sunday and Tuesday.)

Contact Teacher Name:

Contact Teacher Email:(Required)

Contact Teacher Phone Number:(Required)

Number of students expected to attend:(Required)

Please enter a number from 8 to 40.

Please identify the grade level(s) of attending students:(Required)

Likely number of chaperones (including other teachers):

The Stowe Center requires one adult per every 10 students.

Are there special student, teacher, or chaperone accommodations that can help us serve you best?

Do you plan to have lunch on site?

Yes, please.

No, thank you.

Are you interested in scheduling a joint visit with our neighbor, The Mark Twain House and Museum?

Yes, please

No, thank you.

If yes, have you already contacted The Mark Twain House?

Yes

Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.

Harriet’s Backyard Campaign

“A Garden is a Place of Healing for the Soul. It would seem as if from the growth of leaves, and flowers, and shrubs, there exhaled a silent dew, which brought comfort to the heart blistered by the paltry suns of life…”

-Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Revelations from Our Gardens Seat” in The Independent, August 9, 1855.

Help the Stowe Center with these strategic priorities

School Group Interest Form 2024

Group Tour Interest Form 2022