harriet beecher stowe stows way of speaking was through writing and publishing stories. from the early 1830s and series of letters, at this point in her career she was writing short stories. she was the mother of five children at that point and she was struggling to make ends meet. her husband was a professor. a career that didn't pay that well so she had to take care of the household words and her children the best thing she could do was right. she knew she was good at it and so that's what she did the she decides to write a short story of four installments, four chapters, for newspaper called a national era. there's one of them right here. she begins to write but she quickly realizes that it's going to be a much longer story. so she needs to provide substance and documentation. even though it's a novel she wants it to be stated in reality. she writes to formerly enslaved people like frederick douglass, and while she's writing in "the national era," we have a letter dated july 9, 1851, where she states you may perhaps have noticed in your editorial reading a series of a

are in 19th century author harriet beecher stowe's home in connecticut. we invite you to visit and we are standing today in stowe's front parlor, the more formal space. when you visit here you sit down in this parlor and share conversation about issues and experiences. stowe was born harriet beecher and litchfield connecticut and western connecticut and her life she lived in boston cincinnati brunswick maine andover massachusetts and jena has been retired to be near her two sisters here in hartford connecticut. in hartford they had two houses. first of the middle of the civil war stowe boelter dream house, her glamorous mansion and they built that house moved in 1863 and lived there for about eight years and then discovered over those years that it was too expensive to maintain so they downsized into this more modest but still spacious hartford home where they lived out the rest of their lives. stowe moved into this fourth street house in hartford in 1873 in the house had been built on specs and lived in for a couple of years. she didn't specially build it

booktv's recent visit to hartford, connecticut, we toured of the special collections unit of the harriet beecher stowe center which houses the letters and books related to the novel "uncle tom's cabin." >> so here we are in the harriet beecher stowe center's archive vault, as our archive storage area. it is home to our archival and printed books elections, also photographs, pamphlets, any sort of work of art on paper as well. including broadsides, posters of the 19th century. our collections focused around harriet beecher stowe, or famine and active reform work in the 19th century. so you went collections around anti-slavery and abolition in new england, specific connecticut, as well as women's history as it relates to the suffrage movement. the center began collecting works on and by harriet beecher stowe and come as early as our founder in 1930s and '40s. she found our organization in 1941 and we have been collecting ever since. this archives vault was built in the 1970s to howell's -- house rare collection, paper this collection. today we are looking at how she came to write "uncle tom's cabin," he

booktv's recent visit to hartford, connecticut, we toured of the special collections unit of the harriet beecher stoweer which houses letters and books related to the novel "uncle tom's cabi cabin." >> here we are in the harriet beecher stowe center archive vault, archive storage area is the home door archival and printed books collection, also photographs, pamphlets, any sort of work of art on paper as well, including broadsides posters of the 19th century.

was living in his house and we like to show people other sides of "uncle tom's cabin" that harriet beecher stowe was known for. they have like to let our visitors know that harriet has made a lasting impact and we want to make sure her story is not forgotten. >> stowe died in 1896. she was 85. she died in this house as her husband had before her and when she died this parlor were standing in the front parlor. her coffin was laid out here and this is where the wait lists of "the new york times" wrote this up. it was widely reported and she was so famous that many came to visit and give their respects. she was buried next to one of her children, two of her children who predeceased her and her husband in andover, massachusetts. where they had been living when their son henry died at 19. .. whatever i could stand by this and funny and i don't have to do this again. he am fine. well, i was wrong. people went abcly nuts for it. some people loved it. some people hated it and people were caring and even crazier. ask me. i am the mexican. so people called me on my bluff and started sending in questions i

you mentioned harriet beecher stowe who is a popular kentucky figure. we read and study her, but lincoln and that relationship -- he's much more popular in the north and new england than he ever becomes in the south, particularly at the end of the civil war. >> lincoln in 1860 running on the northern ticket received i want to think five votes in his wife's home county. even his in-laws didn't vote for him. he received something like 1,000 votes in the entire country. to vote for lincoln in 1860 for kentucky ans was like voting for a communist. he didn't have any support here. kentucky to begin the war wanted union and slavery. when he decided by the middle of the war it was going to be a war against slavery finally, that turns many kentucky ans against the administration. and the state that was a union at the beginning wasn't that at the end. lincoln and his party are on the outs in kentucky for a long period of time. in the 20th century kentucky reclaims abraham lincoln with the building of the memorial to his birth place. so kentucky has reclaimed lin

beecher stows aunt chloe. -- which resembled harriet owe's aunt chloe. , one contemporary newspaper suggested the statute of instead of having a mammy, it should be replaced by a white daddy, who could be sexually assaulting a black woman as mammy looks helplessly on. lands for the actual monument stoped outrage. lacks not only culminated, -- butks not only culminated, they organize petitions and letters to politicians. the letter was presented to the calvin coolidge. what name can we give mammy and her anonymous sisters in this of historical revisionism? we are not post-racial, but we in more significant -- more tune with color in status, more attuned to seeing multiple layers of meaning. we could remember a six-year-old , who wasd malvina bequeathed of her owner. inn the owner's wife died 1852, malvina went to live with ruth's daughter, living in rural georgia. she was illiterate. like most women of her generation, she struggled during , againstction incredible odds. in 1870, she appears with four children. she is working as a maid, a watch or woman, a farm worker. she left a hard life befo