Year of the Woman Discussion Series: First Wednesdays @ 7pm
2020 Theme
Throughout 2020 our popular monthly discussion series will honor the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote. This all-new series will cover a variety of topics relating to Harriet’s connections with other women authors and women’s issues of her day.
Discussion Format
All discussions will be ONLINE and begin at 7pm. Discussions will be led by Dr. John Getz (Professor Emeritus, Xavier University) and various co-leaders. Each discussion will be self-contained so participants can jump in at any point. Suggested readings are be posted, but we’ll always have handouts for anyone who can’t read ahead.
Tickets & RSVP
RSVP for individual discussion sessions through the links below. A donation of $5.00 is suggested, or free for HBSH members. Not a member? Learn more here.
This series is sponsored by Ann Lugbill & Associates.
Throughout 2020 our popular monthly discussion series will honor the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote. This all-new series will cover a variety of topics relating to Harriet’s connections with other women authors and women’s issues of her day.
Discussion Format
All discussions will be ONLINE and begin at 7pm. Discussions will be led by Dr. John Getz (Professor Emeritus, Xavier University) and various co-leaders. Each discussion will be self-contained so participants can jump in at any point. Suggested readings are be posted, but we’ll always have handouts for anyone who can’t read ahead.
Tickets & RSVP
RSVP for individual discussion sessions through the links below. A donation of $5.00 is suggested, or free for HBSH members. Not a member? Learn more here.
This series is sponsored by Ann Lugbill & Associates.
Fall 2020
All discussion groups will be online through the end of 2020. Discussions begin at 7pm Eastern.
Wednesday, September 2: School’s Open (Somehow!) Watch out for Kids.
Co-Leader: Rebecca Thacker, Doctoral Candidate and Charles Phelps Taft Fellow, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of Cincinnati
View Recording (online discussion)
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote children as some of her primary literary characters, as did author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne and Harriet knew each other, and both of them published their most successful books between 1850 and 1852. To kick off the fall we’ll watch for connections among three mid-19th-century girls: Pearl from Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter and Eva and Topsy from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We’ll consider questions like these about Pearl, Eva, and Topsy: Are they simply stereotypes, or are they in some ways believable to us today? What does their behavior tell us about the role of children, especially girls, at that time? What insight does Topsy give us into Harriet’s views of race? What does the last we hear of each of them tell us about expectations for women, white and Black, in that era?
Suggested reading:
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapters VI, XIX, and XXIV
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Chapters XIV, XX, XXVI, and, XLIII
Wednesday, October 7: Harriet’s Scary Great-Niece
View Recording (online discussion)
Co-Leader: Christina Hartlieb, Executive Director, Harriet Beecher Stowe House
Get into the Halloween spirit by studying two Gothic short stories from the 1890s—“The Giant Wistaria” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”—by Harriet’s great-niece, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an important contributor to the movement for women’s rights. The first story poses intriguing questions about long-suppressed family secrets and their possible connection with the present. The second story grew out of Gilman’s own experience and has, in recent decades, become recognized as an American classic.
Suggested reading:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Giant Wistaria” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Wednesday, November 4: Holiday Entertaining Tips from the Beecher Sisters
View Recording (online discussion)
Co-Leader: Kristen Renzi, Associate Professor of English/Director, Gender and Diversity Studies, Xavier University
Harriet and her older sister Catherine offer advice for making the perfect home for the holidays and any days, and we’ll consider the values their advice reflects. See how many of their tips work for you! We’ll also look at what a Harvard historian wrote about Thanksgiving last year and think about how we might incorporate his points into our celebrations this year.
Suggested reading:
Catherine Beecher, A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841), Chapter XXIII “On
Domestic Amusements and Social Duties”
Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Chimney Corner (1864-67), Chapters II “Woman’s
Sphere” and VII “How Shall We Entertain Our Company?”
Philip Deloria, “The Invention of Thanksgiving,” The New Yorker, Nov. 25, 2019, p.
70-74.
Wednesday, December 2: Merry Abolitionist Christmas!
RSVP Link (online session)
Co-Leader: Christine Anderson, Associate Professor/Co-Director, Public History Program, Xavier University
We’ll look at the surprising connections between the abolitionist movement, especially its women activists, and the development of Christmas customs we practice today.
Suggested reading and viewing:
How Women Used Christmas to Fight Slavery (video)
“What Christmas Owes to Abolitionists,” Consortium News, Dec. 23, 2011
“1800s Abolitionists’ Christmas Story,” Justice Network, Dec. 25, 2017
Alison Kinney, “Oh—Tannenbaum . . .” Paris Review, Dec. 16, 2015
Past Sessions
Wednesday, February 5: “Anti-Slavery Lovebirds”
Co-leader: Dr. Christine Anderson, Xavier University
Get into the Valentine spirit and learn about the loving and often unconventional relationship between Harriet and her husband Calvin Stowe and its influence on Harriet’s writing and on responses by each of them to issues of their day.
Suggested reading:
Co-leader: Dr. Christine Anderson, Xavier University
Get into the Valentine spirit and learn about the loving and often unconventional relationship between Harriet and her husband Calvin Stowe and its influence on Harriet’s writing and on responses by each of them to issues of their day.
Suggested reading:
Wednesday, March 4: “Sisters in Solidarity?”
Co-leader: Dr. Jennifer McFarlane Harris, Assistant Professor of English Xavier University
For Women’s History Month, we’ll explore this question: Why wasn’t Harriet more supportive of another Harriet (Jacobs) when the latter sought help publishing her own narrative of her enslaved years? We’ll consider the relationship between Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861).
Suggested reading:
Co-leader: Dr. Jennifer McFarlane Harris, Assistant Professor of English Xavier University
For Women’s History Month, we’ll explore this question: Why wasn’t Harriet more supportive of another Harriet (Jacobs) when the latter sought help publishing her own narrative of her enslaved years? We’ll consider the relationship between Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861).
Suggested reading:
Wednesday, April 1: “Harriet and Two Contemporary Women Reformers”
View Recording (online event)
Co-leader: Dr. Kristen Renzi, Associate Professor of English, Xavier University
We’ll look at Harriet’s personal and literary connections with two women she knew who also used writing to encourage causes they believed in: Julia Ward Howe and Rebecca Harding Davis.
Suggested reading:
View Recording (online event)
Co-leader: Dr. Kristen Renzi, Associate Professor of English, Xavier University
We’ll look at Harriet’s personal and literary connections with two women she knew who also used writing to encourage causes they believed in: Julia Ward Howe and Rebecca Harding Davis.
Suggested reading:
- Julia Ward Howe, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (1862)
- Poem from Lyrics of the Street: “Outside the Party”
- “Julia Ward Howe’s Appeal to Womanhood” in the women’s rights newspaper The Revolution, Oct. 13, 1870
- Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron-Mills (1861)
Wednesday, May 6: “Cincinnati Literary Sisters”
View Recording (online event)
Co-leaders: Dr. Kristen Renzi, Associate Professor of English, Xavier University & Diana Porter
Alice and Phoebe Cary were sisters who were growing up in Cincinnati while Harriet was here and devoted their lives to literature and social reform, including abolition and women’s rights. We’ll explore their literary and political similarities and differences with Harriet and her work.
Suggested reading:
View Recording (online event)
Co-leaders: Dr. Kristen Renzi, Associate Professor of English, Xavier University & Diana Porter
Alice and Phoebe Cary were sisters who were growing up in Cincinnati while Harriet was here and devoted their lives to literature and social reform, including abolition and women’s rights. We’ll explore their literary and political similarities and differences with Harriet and her work.
Suggested reading:
- Short story by Alice Cary in Clovernook, or Recollections of Our Neighborhood in the West, (1852) “The Wildermings”
- Poems by Alice Cary, “To Solitude” and “The West Country”
- Poems by Phoebe Cary, “Harvest Gathering,” “Was He Henpecked?” , "John Brown", and “Advice Gratis to a Certain Women”
| cary_sisters_timeline.pdf |