STOWE ON THE GO! Facilitating Common Ground for Common Good
Difficult conversations, well facilitated, can lead to a better understanding of each other as human beings.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center presents Stowe on the Go: a program that facilitates difficult conversations using historical objects and nurtures common ground for common good. Revenue from this social enterprise directly fund the mission of the Stowe Center!
In a divisive, increasingly polarized world, the Stowe Center helps communities recognize and appreciate where they are united.
Stowe on the Go offers facilitated experiences to help hone deep listening and constructive conversational skills that lead to better understanding of each other. We use museum collection items to ground each conversation in historical context and provide a springboard for discussion that helps lead to common ground.
Our approach helps participants practice skills for engaging in difficult conversations with open minds and respect for difference. A Stowe on the Go experience leads to more cohesive groups that better understand each other. Our goal is for each person to say: “I will think about what you just said.”
EXPERIENCES INCLUDE:
Words are Powerful: Authority and Responsibility
Literary Activism Now
This experience explores the concept of sharing authority and taking responsibility. Through stories of historical literary activism, participants consider their institution’s role as a site of authority and reflect on what it means to be responsible to their associated communities. The experience aims to move clients toward drafting their own plan for building organizational equity.
Words Make the World: Word Choice
Literary Activism Now
This experience explores the impact of word choice on shaping perception as related to systemic injustice. Who names? Who is named? What impact can our own words have? And how can our use of words build a more just world now?
Common Ground for Common Good (COMING SOON)
Activists, Radicals, and Resistance
This experience explores how to consider and engage with wildly divergent political viewpoints, and how to share space, search for, and build common ground together. A toolkit for engaging in challenging conversations anchors this experience.
Revenue from this social enterprise directly funds the mission of the Stowe Center!
“The best parts of the Stowe on the Go experience are the moments of vulnerability.”
– Stowe on the Go Participant, Healthcare
“The presenters are full of enthusiasm and knowledge.”
– Stowe on the Go Participant
“I loved the historical perspective, interactivity, and knowledge conveyed during the experience.”
– Stowe on the Go Participant, Marketing
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.
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.
Isabella Beecher Hooker
IsabellaHolmes 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.
December 2, 2019
Due to inclement weather, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is closed today, Monday, December 2.
