Where-To-Go Wednesday - Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

We were given complimentary tickets to the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own.

What: Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

Where: 77 Forest St.

             Hartford, CT

Who: Teens and Up

Me - The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center was interesting. Although I never read Uncle Tom's Cabin, I knew a little about her but not much. It was fascinating to learn about her and her family. They lived next door to the Clemons (Mark Twain's family as Clemons is his real name).

At the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, they don't want you to just go through and listen to them talk, they want you to have opinions. In one room, you sit down and talk about whether things are better now than they were then and stuff like that. I just listened. I don't really like talking in front of crowds and people I don't know even though it was only our family, one other family, and our tour guide. The conversation was interesting. It made our visit to the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center unique. Overall, I enjoyed our visit though I didn't contribute to the discussion.

Mom - Although the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is located in the home where she spent 23 years of her life, a visit here is more than just a tour of a historic home. It is an interactive tour where you are encouraged to give your opinions. In fact, at one point in the tour, you will actually sit down and discuss how you feel life has changed since Harriet's time and whether things are better now or worse. In our group's opinion, it is a little bit of both. Even if you don't want to contribute to the discussion, it is still interesting to listen to other people's opinions and having the opportunity to do so does make this tour different than the typical historic home tour.

Of course, in some ways, the tour is more like what you are probably used to. You will visit numerous rooms in the house and learn about the life of Harriet and her family. She had quite an illustrious family, Her father, Lyman Beecher was a Calvinist preacher. Her grandfather was a Revolutionary War general. One of her sisters was educator and author, Catherine Beecher, and one of her brothers was famous preacher and abolitionist, Henry Ward Beecher. Harriet herself was, of course, an abolitionist too as were other members of the family. 

There will definitely be plenty of discussion of Harriet's greatest and most well-known work, Uncle Tom's Cabin. For one thing, there is a whole room in the house that is now completely devoted to memorabilia regarding the book. There you can see numerous pictures, figurines, and more as well as copies of the book in numerous languages.

On the whole, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is a very unique place. In some ways, it is like visiting any other historic home, in other ways, it is not.  A visit here is sure to be interesting. 

And that's our view. For more about the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center or to purchase tickets, visit www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org

Tune in tomorrow for Theater Thursday.