Harriet Beecher Stowe: Author, Abolitionist, and Painter?

2950 Gilbert Avenue,Cincinnati OH 45206

01 August, 2021

Description

Join Dr. Shana Klein to learn how Stowe's migration to Florida intersected with her artistic and activist endeavors. In the years following the Civil War, Harriet Beecher Stowe painted a number of canvases of Florida oranges. One in particular resembles the view from Stowe’s home window in Mandarin, Florida, displaying a cluster of fruit cascading down a leafy tree. Stowe completed this painting after 1867, when she purchased an orange grove in Florida. This decision to migrate to the South might seem strange given that Stowe was an ardent abolitionist, but purchasing southern land and transforming former plantations into orange groves was a method for many northerners to revitalize the devastated region and transform its political climate. Florida was in particular need of revitalization; the State was denigrated as a primitive swamp and cultural wasteland made worse by the Civil War. For Stowe, the cultivation and painting of oranges represented the promise of a “New South” and a cultural awakening that would correct a political economy tarnished by slave systems. This presentation studies Stowe’s widely understudied painting practice to understand how her artistic interests merged with her political activism. About the speaker: Shana Klein is a historian of American art. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of New Mexico, where she completed the dissertation—and now book—The Fruits of Empire: Art, Food, and the Politics of Race in the Age of American Expansion. This book explores food in U.S. paintings, advertisements and cookbooks to understand how food imagery was a platform for artists and viewers to discuss heated debates about race and citizenship. Klein has been awarded several fellowships for her research at institutions such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, U.S. Capitol Building, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, among others. Klein’s research and courses bring together art and social justice. The Harriet Beecher Stowe House celebrates the life, family, and legacy of author and activist Harriet Beecher Stowe.