Harriet Beecher Stowe Center

A famous author’s house worth visiting! The Harriet Beecher Stowe house is modest but we had a good guide and the tour was informative about her extraordinary life and her impressive cultural impact. We particularly liked the floral paintings that Stowe did in her later years, and suggested to the gift shop that they create a set of notecards based on them. Allow one hour for the tour, plus time to explore the small interpretive center. We took advantage of the discounted combo ticket with the Mark Twain House, which is right next door.

Right next to Mark Twain’s museum. Tour guide was very interactive and she asked for our opinions. Learned that Stowe had a very progressive education and a lot of tragedies, with most of her children passing away before her. I also learned that she wrote a book called «Key», which is a harsher and realistic portrayal of treatment of slaves. Apparently, she wrote this as she said Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a more romanticized version of slavery written for the mainstream. Now I’m going to have to read it.

Absolutely loved it. Very informative tour. A must if your in Connecticut. Not in such a great neighborhood but well worth it. Plus you can tour Mark Twains home right next door.

Since we were at Twains house, we decided to do this tour as well. It’s a lot more humble than Twain’s house. The house and history of Stowe and the house were interesting and I learned a lot about her life. The tour guide, however, made the tour disappointing. He talked and behaved through his body language as if he was bored and didn’t want to be there. He also had a lot of pauses during his story telling, which made the tour longer than necessary. We passed by another tour during ours and their guide was much more animated. If it wasn’t for our guide, I would have rated this a 5.

This house is right next door to the Mark Twain house. We did a combined tour of both houses for $ 25 which was 90 minutes long in total. Our tour guide was very knowledgable about the house and was very interested in telling us the historical significance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The house is less impressive than the Mark Twain house, but the tour was great.

We took this tour together with the tour of the Mark Twain home. Our guide was truly a well informed speaker of Stowe. He provided so many little known facts and tidbits that made the tour that much more enjoyable. The home is very well preserved and her story as an author is just fascinating. I highly recommend this tour and suggest taking it together with the tour of the Mark Twain home next door. The fee for both tours combined was $ 23 each for adults and $ 15 for youth (12 year old).

Spent a fun evening last night at the HBS House, taking the «Spirits at Stowe» tour. This tour is given only in October on Fri and Sat nights. Our tour guide, Alex, was very knowledgable and informative about this famous author. While we didn’t see any ghosts, we did learn a lot of interesting and spooky history of the woman and her life, and the spiritualism of the era. Perfect for the Halloween season!

The Harriet Beecher Stowe center is a smaller establishment than the Mark Twain House. It also represents a less essential part of it’s former owner than the Mark Twain’s house. I wish I had known going in that the Harriet Beecher Stowe center showcased a house that was essentially a retirement home for Harriet Beecher Stowe.
It’s still interesting to look at, but a lot more homier thank you might expect for such an influential and relatively wealthy author. You do get a sense of who Harriet Beecher Stowe was, but perhaps not as cohesive a story of the woman herself as the people at Mark Twain’s house managed to create. On the plus side, the reconstruction effort seems much more successful for the Harriet Beecher Stowe house– they managed to obtain much of her original paintings and furniture– the house was also never made into an apartment complex.
The staff working at the house do a nice job of trying to make the center as interactive and interesting as possible. They have a very small exhibit on Harriet Beecher Stowe (that was a bit confusing… never really did figure out from the exhibit where she was born and raised). They had a short film running about Harriet Beecher Stowe and when I visited, they had an interactive quilt where you can add something that gives you courage to speak out.
There was also another exhibit on Us vs Them in a nearby center that we were taken to after the tour. The exhibit was fairly interesting and included many more examples of racism than the mainly African-​American centered racism shown at the Mark Twain House’s race exhibit.
Overall, this was a very interesting experience, but it’s pretty obvious why the admission is about half the price of the Mark Twain’s House.

If you’re already in the neighborhood to visit the Mark Twain House, there’s no excuse not to visit the Stowe House too. Today, Stowe’s importance is summed up in that one book that «started» that little war but, as it turns out, she was much more prolific. Other members of her family were equally interesting too.
The house itself is nice and, if I recall, most of the furnishings were original. Ultimately, I don’t recall being excited or blown away by the house or its artifacts — nothing stands out. This is one of those sites where the tour guide can make or break your experience. Having known only the basics of H. B. Stowe going into the tour, I learned a bit, but not much. I’m sure the story of a successful woman writer of the 19^th century should be intriguing. It could have been better, certainly, but I did enjoy the visit.
Spend some time in the gift shop too. They had fairly decent offerings.