Harriet Beecher Stowe House

We visited this historical landmark for a special performance of the Queen City Flash Mob Theater group. A short tour of the house included rooms full of vintage/​replica toys and furniture. We didn’t really spend much time perusing the place and will have to return.
There is a small bookstore and a few versions/​translations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (even a really old one). Parking is in the back lot or on the street. The staff were very friendly and knowledgeable.

There are places I see on my travel where I roll my eyes at paying admission, but then there’s little gems like the Harriet Beecher Stowe House where I want to support them and keep it running. I’m a big fan of Civil Rights and the Underground Railroad, plus I’m a writer, so everything about this was right up my alley. It was very educational, there were a lot of interesting artifacts. I would highly recommend it! Just be mindful of the hours!
I was here on a work trip and almost missed out. After the event I hauled balls to the Harriet Beecher Stowe house. It closed at 2 p.m. and according to my gps I was going to get there at 1:55 p.m. I didn’t give up. I went anyway. When I showed up I wasn’t alone. There were three women who were part of a book club that drove all the way from Yorktown, Ohio to see the museum. After ringing and banging on the door, an elderly, slender black man appeared. After some convincing by one of the ladies, he agreed to a tour. Woohoo! How very kind and generous.
«How I wish you could see Walnut Hills… the road to it is as picturesque as you can imagine a road to be… Much of the wooding is beech of a noble growth. The straight, beautiful shafts of these trees as one looks up the cool greens…» — Harriet to a friend, 1833
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published in installments in the antislavery newspaper, The National Era. Readers breathlessly awaited new installments, so when it appeared as a book in 1852, the novel became an immediate bestseller. In its first year, it sold an astonishing 300,000 copies! It was by far the best-​selling novel of the 19^th century.
Readers found Stowe’s representation of the horrors of slavery to be both thrilling and troubling. The novel was the first of its kind to use the platform of race, religion and womanhood as a rallying cry for change. Stowe’s melodramatic representation of innocent, God-​fearing slaves being abused by evil, God-​less slave-​owners touched the hearts of Northern readers. Stowe fueled the abolitionist cause by asserting that Christian love could overcome the evils of slavery. With the publication of the novel, Stowe added her name to a growing list of writers who used the written word to change the world.
Most of the furniture in the home is not actually furniture used by the Beecher family but it is from the time period. There is a desk, however, that was actually owned by Beecher’s father. The house is original. It has been added on to, though. It was originally in an L shape. I was lucky to see an exhibit of clay sculptures by Raymond Lane, Jr., focusing on Harriet Tubman’s work on the underground railroad, which were temporarily at the facility.
All in all, good palace to go! If you’re in Cincinnati, don’t miss this! It’s not expensive, doesn’t take long and it’s valuable history!