Sewing and Learning 2023 #3

The Media Gallery

Education | Video

Mariah Kupfner, Ph.D.

DETAILS

Part of Stowe Prize 2022

Explore how and why sentimental sewing—or adding a moral message—was used by Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionists, and activists historically as a way of speaking out at a time when their voices were often excluded from public forums.

Our Sewing and Learning Workshop includes discussion of the ethics of craft materials, a step-by-step craft instruction, research on the histories embedded in the abolitionist political stitch, and inspirational work from contemporary craft-activist, or “craftivist,” artists.

Download the sewing pattern

Kits are available for purchase through our online Museum Store.

Related Library Items

Sewing and Learning 2023, Sewing and Learning 2023 #2, Sewing and Learning 2023 #4

Description

Mariah Kupfner, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of American Studies & Public Heritage at Penn State Harrisburg. She received her Ph.D. in American & New England Studies from Boston University, where her dissertation research focused on the political uses of American women’s decorative needlework. Her current book project examines core themes of the developing women’s movement in the United States from 1820 to 1920—the abolition of slavery, women’s property ownership, education, political identity, and suffrage—through the lens of decorative needlework. She brings particular attention to the racialized and classed construction of femininity and its relationship to nostalgic material forms. Her research recaptures the significant contributions that needleworkers made to women’s cultural and political activism and considers gender as a crafted form. She is also working on a project that considers the relationship between textile mending practices and politics of repair, redress, and feminist re-imagining.

Before Penn State Harrisburg, Kupfner worked as a curatorial fellow at Historic New England and was the program coordinator for the Boston University Undergraduate Public Humanities Fellowship. Having worked in public humanities, public history, and the museum field, she is deeply committed to publicly engaged scholarship. Her work has appeared in the Winterthur Portfolio and the Material Culture Review and in public-facing venues like Nursing Clio and Contingent Magazine (under the name “Mariah Gruner”). She serves as co-chair for the Material Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association and continues to work with museums and historic sites.

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.

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

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Adult Group Interest Form

Group Tour Interest Form 2022

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.

Group Name:

Name of Primary Contact:(Required)

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Contact Phone Number:(Required)

What date would you like to visit? (The Stowe Center typically books group tours for Thursday through Sunday visits.)

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Please indicate the number of adults, seniors, and children expected in your group:

Are there special accommodations that can help us serve you best?

Are you interested in 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.