University of Cincinnati
02/06/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 02/06/2026 16:42
UC teams with historic landmark to preserve the past for the future
UC teams with historic landmark to preserve the past for the future
Partnership helps restore original gardens to Harriet Beecher Stowe House
3 minute read February 6, 2026 Share on facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on Reddit Print StoryLike
The landscape at Cincinnati's historic Harriet Beecher Stowe House museum has settled in for winter, under a hard coat of ice and snow.
But once spring rolls around, it will show a transformation, thanks in part to the history department at UC's College of Arts and Sciences.
The Beecher Stowe House, located at 2950 Gilbert Ave., serves as a hub for the community and historians interested in the life and political activism of the famed abolitionist. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the groundbreaking "Uncle Tom's Cabin," after which Abraham Lincoln called her "the little woman who started the big war."
While she lived there, the home was a stop for fugitive enslaved people on the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War.
The project came about through a partnership between UC's department of history, the Stowe House, and UC's College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning.
"The Stowe Garden Project brings together art, ecology, and local history to transform the historic Stowe house in Walnut Hills," said project director Katherine Sorrels, a professor of history in UC's College of Arts and Sciences.
Returning to its roots
Plaque describing Cincinnati's historic Harriet Beecher Stowe house. Photo/Provided
Kitchen and herb gardens highlight the plantings of the 19th century residence, and the Edgemont Inn, a 20th century African-American boarding house to which the property had been converted.
Although beautiful, the gardens were much more than decorative - in them, members of the Stowe family grew medicinal herbs, and crops were introduced to the Americas which had traditionally been grown by enslaved African-American farmers.
Many of the plants admired and planted by the Stowe family are considered invasive today, which is where the UC design students came in.
Because the original invasive species can't be planted today, they designed large-scale fiber sculptures that represent the invasive species and the history of the property, exploring the intersection of art, history and environmentalism.
A history of preserving history
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House museum was established to preserve the history and home of the ground-breaking abolitionist when she lived in Cincinnati from 1832 until 1850.
Home to Rev. Lyman Beecher and his family of religious rights leaders, educators, writers, and antislavery and women's rights advocates, the museum is recognized today as a national historic landmark.
Perched on the corner of Martin Luther King Dr. and Gilbert Ave. in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Walnut Hills, the house overlooks a landscape very different from the one Stowe would remember. At the time, there was no I-71 in the distance, and no Shell station across the street.
Today, preservationists including teams from UC, bring history, art, and horticulture together in a beautiful, educational, and environmentally sensitive greenspace.
Featured image at top: Cincinnati's Harriet Beecher Stowe house museum in full bloom. Photo/Provided
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UC teams with historic landmark to preserve the past for the future
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The landscape at Cincinnati's historic Harriet Beecher Stowe House museum has settled in for winter, under a hard coat of frost and snow. But once spring rolls around, it will show a transformation, thanks in part to the history department at UC's College of Arts and Sciences. The Beecher Stowe House, located at 2950 Gilbert Ave., serves as a hub for the community and historians interested in the life and political activism of the famed abolitionist. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the groundbreaking "Uncle Tom's Cabin" while living there, and the home was a stop for fugitive enslaved people on the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War.
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