Harriet Beecher and Calvin Stowe collection

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on June 14, 1811. She attended then taught at the Hartford Female Academy, a school founded by her sister Catherine. She later taught at the Western Female Institute in Ohio. Stowe published her first story in Western Monthly in 1834. She later contributed to Atlantic Monthly, the New York Independent, and the Christian Union.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her most famous novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (published in 1852), while living in Brunswick, Maine. First published as a serial in the National Era, the novel sold over two million copies within two years and has never gone out of print. The novel was adapted into numerous stage productions, musicals, and films, often performed by traveling companies. Portrayals of Uncle Tom’s Cabin included the use of Blackface and other anti-Black racist imagery and stereotypes. While originally published as a statement against slavery in the United States, Stowe’s work has since been criticized for its creation of the “Tom caricature” that portrays Black men as model submissive servants. Other works by Stowe include The Pearl of Orr's Island (1862) and Poganuc People (1878). Harriet Beecher Stowe died on July 11, 1896, at her home in Hartford, Connecticut.

Calvin Ellis Stowe (Bowdoin 1824), educator and writer, was born April 26, 1802, in Natick, Massachusetts. Stowe attended school in Bradford, Massachusetts, and Gorham Academy in Gorham, Maine, before entering Bowdoin College. After graduating, Stowe worked at Bowdoin as Librarian. He left in 1825 to teach at Andover Theological Seminary, Dartmouth and, later, Lane Theological Seminary in Ohio, where he met and married Harriet Elizabeth Beecher in 1836. Stowe spent the early 1850s at Bowdoin as Collins Professor of Natural and Revealed Religion. Stowe retired from teaching after spending twelve more years at Andover. On August 22, 1886, Calvin Stowe died at his home in Mandarin, Florida.