LibraryGeorge J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives

 

0.25 linear feet.

Catalog Number:M172

Series List:

• Harriet Beecher Stowe,
  .10 linear feet.
• Calvin Ellis Stowe,
  .05 linear feet.
• Images,
  .10 linear feet.

Agency History / Biographical Note:
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.

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.

Stowe wrote her most famous novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), while living in Brunswick, Maine. First published as a serial in the National Era, the novel was an instant success that has never gone out of print. 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.

Scope and Content:

Material relating to Calvin Ellis Stowe includes correspondence (1824-73); biographical clippings and obituary; and ephemera, including Calvin Stowe's autograph.

Material relating to Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe includes correspondence; holograph notes (including "The moral of Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1 p.)); editorials; transcripts of selected letters; playbills; ephemera; and newsclippings.

Cite as: Stowe collection, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library.

Access Restrictions: None.