The Hartford Literary Journey: An Exploration of Hartford’s Most Influential Writers
By Olivia Tummescheit
Olivia Tummescheit is a native of West Hartford, proud product of home schooling, enthusiastic reader, and lover of Jane Austen. Olivia was a member of the first literature class to make use of this anthology, taught by Professor Jeffrey Partridge at CT State Community College Capital in the fall semester of 2025.
I had the pleasure this fall of taking the first Hartford Literary Journey with the excellent and inspiring tour guide Dr. Jeffrey Partridge. The seven stops on the tour took us all over Hartford to explore the writings and lives of famous Hartford writers from Mark Twain to Wallace Stevens, but the highlight of the tour was becoming acquainting with lesser-known Hartford writers Lydia Sigourney and Charles Dudley Warner, who were renowned in their own day but have lately fallen from favor. This amazing tour is an absolute must for Hartford residents and visitors and anyone with a scholarly interest in Hartford’s literature and history.
First Stop: A Literary Look at the Wadsworth Atheneum
The tour begins on a fall morning with a walk down Hartford’s Main Street to the Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut’s largest (and one of the United States’ oldest) art museums, open to the public since 1844. Here we get an overarching view of the coming destinations through reading pieces by Mark Twain, Lydia Sigourney, and Wallace Stevens and connecting each excerpt to pieces in the Wadsworth collection. While Mark Twain and Wallace Stevens are familiar names in the literary world, most of us have never heard of Lydia Sigourney, the poet who in her day was considered one of the most influential authors of the United States. Her elegy “Fall of the Charter Oak,” read in front of Brownell’s magnificent painting of the famous Connecticut oak, makes an unintentionally humorous counterpoint to Twain’s decidedly mischievous description of the tree’s importance in his “Glimpse of Hartford.” Mrs. Sigourney mourns the “loved wreck” of “the monarch of the plain…that brave old Oak…our tutelary tree” in nine sentimental rhymed stanzas (Sigourney, “Charter Oak”). Twain describes being shown various furniture made from the great Charter Oak and his own reactions ranging from gazing “with inexpressible solicitude” to finally just “I worshipped” (Twain, “Glimpse of Hartford”). Then he visits the Atheneum itself, where he finds still more pieces of the Charter Oak made into “a walking stick, a needlecase, a dog collar, a three-legged stool, a bootjack, a diner-table, a ten-pen alley, a tooth-pick, a—” (We get the idea, Mr. Clemens, thank you!) (Twain, “Glimpse of Hartford”). The excursion closes with Stevens’ “Of Hartford in a Purple Light,” bringing us a glimpse of 20th century Hartford with “the river, the railroad, the cathedral” (Stevens “Hartford”).
Second Stop: Nook Farm with Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
The second stop on our literary tour is Mark Twain’s magnificent mansion on Farmington Avenue. The readings, unexpectedly, pair Mark Twain with his neighbor and contemporary Charles Dudley Warner, who – like Lydia Sigourney – was immensely influential in his day and is almost forgotten in ours. Everyone knows that Twain is both entertaining and insightful, but what a pleasant and charming surprise to discover Warner’s series of dialogues entitled Backlog Studies – named after the large log that supports the fire in a fireplace – that capture the spirit of conversations around the fire in their neighborhood of Nook Farm. Although Warner’s own house no longer stands, the Clemens library with its enormous carved mantelpiece above a cozy hearth is easily imagined as the backdrop for these lively conversations, and Twain himself plays a part in the Backlog Studies as “Our Next-Door Neighbor.” Warner’s writing is less flamboyant than Twain’s, but has a charm all its own. There is the gentle banter between Warner (“The Fire-Tender”) and his wife Susan (“The Mistress”); Warner, speaking of how households are run, says that “when the mistress is absent, this room…does not look at all like the same place; it is stiff, and seems to lack a soul. […] When she returns…the room is transformed. I couldn’t do it in a week.” Mrs. Warner replies, “That is the first time I ever knew a man admit he couldn’t do anything if he had time.” In another study, Warner describes himself “in the adjoining library, pretending to write; but it is a poor day for ideas. He has written his wife’s name about eleven hundred times, and cannot get any farther” (Warner, Backlog Studies: Third Study).
But besides their innate charm and humor, Warner’s Backlog Studies provide an illuminating commentary on my other two favorite authors from the tour, the literary sensations Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lydia Sigourney. Warner and his friends spend much of the dialogues discussing what the introduction to Backlog Studies calls “‘The Woman Question,’ that is, what role should women play in society?” (Golden, “Introduction to Backlog Studies”). One particularly relevant dialogue tackles the growing number of female authors in particular, but rather than universally condemning (or approving) the “prominence women have” in the production of “the literature of this day,” the friends discuss the nuances of what makes literature worth reading, whether these qualities are more often found in female or male authors, and what kinds of literature women tend to fail or succeed at, ending with Reverend Twichell’s defense of why “the novel is immortal” – because it deals with human nature (Warner, Backlog Studies: Sixth Study). While it’s easy to bristle at the sometimes condescending tone taken towards some (but by no means all) of the women writers mentioned, what stood out to me is rather the courtesy and thoughtfulness of the discussion. The debate turns on the quality of writing that women are producing; although the friends deem much of popular fiction written by women either “flavorless as water-gruel” or “immoral in tendency,” they acknowledge in contrast that “the foremost living writers of fiction are women” (Warner, Backlog Studies: Sixth Study). While modern readers may not evaluate literature on the same terms as the Nook Farm friends, especially with regard to morality, the debate over what makes literature worthwhile is still relevant today. Inside Mark Twain’s own home, the influence of his beloved wife Livy Clemens is felt in every room with the dual emphasis on elegance and comfort. It’s easy to think of Mark Twain as a solitary adventurer and genius making his own way in the world, but visiting Nook Farm is a reminder that he was deeply rooted in his family and a wider circle of friends who were a lasting influence on his writing. Livy Clemens in particular was her husband’s primary and most trusted editor as long as she lived, although not a writer herself. But there were other women in the Nook Farm circle who did write books – and one of them, a friend and neighbor of Livy, would set out to write a serial story and end up changing history.
Third Stop: Three Women Writers of Nook Farm
Our next stop introduces a trifecta of literary women with deep connections to Twain and Warner’s neighborhood and era: Harriet Beecher Stowe, her sister Isabella Beecher Hooker, and their great-niece Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Gilman, the most modern of the three, wrote the riveting novella “The Yellow Wallpaper,” capturing the gradual descent into madness of a woman who is quietly but surely stifled by her abusive husband. Isabella Beecher Hooker was an advocate for women’s rights, arguing in one of her many writings that the Constitution, if properly interpreted, actually guaranteed women the right to vote, and that continuing to deny women this right was unconstitutional. The star of this literary sisterhood, however, is unquestionably Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe with her 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This book “broke American publishing records” and was instrumental in winning readers to the abolitionist cause (Burgess, “Hartford’s Resident Celebrity”). Her Nook Farm house is painted an unobtrusive gray and stands behind a screen of trees, its interior furnished comfortably but not opulently – a thought-provoking contrast to Mark Twain’s flamboyant mansion just across the lawn. Mrs. Stowe’s home may be understated, but sparks fly in Uncle Tom’s Cabin as she tells the twin stories of Eliza fleeing to the north and Tom being sold down south. Her bestselling work of fiction collectively awoke the nation’s conscience to the actual evils of slavery around them, causing Lincoln to remark on meeting her, “So you’re the little lady that wrote the book that started this great war” (Burgess, “Hartford’s Resident Celebrity”).
What compels me most about Mrs. Stowe is the morally direct compassion and courage in her writing. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin she offers a moving variety of characters who react in different ways to the issue of slavery. Mr. Shelby’s uncomfortable “we men of the world must wink pretty hard at various things” and slave trader Haley’s callous “All I want is a livin’, you know” both work to condone slavery, but Mrs. Bird’s impassioned declaration that the law against sheltering runaway slaves is “a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I’ll break it…the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do!” convinces her husband to shelter Eliza (Stowe, “Excerpts from Uncle Tom’s Cabin”). Although she portrays both men and women on either side of the slavery issue, Mrs. Stowe highlights several women in particular, including Mrs. Bird, Mrs. Shelby, and the unnamed woman on the ship in Chapter 12, who boldly speak up about the cruelty and injustice of slavery while the men around them are uncomfortably complicit in it. Mrs. Bird, convincing her husband to break the law he has voted for and to help Eliza in the name of Christian kindness, is a reflection of Mrs. Stowe herself, using a work of fiction – a novel – to convince the male-dominated society of the United States that slavery had to be abolished at all costs. Mrs. Stowe’s combination of a thrilling, well-crafted story with a fiery condemnation of injustice in general and slavery in particular make Uncle Tom’s Cabin well worth reading today.
On this second visit to Nook Farm, we had a chance to explore some of the historical archives relating to Mrs. Stowe and her contemporaries. After visiting Mrs. Stowe’s own house, we walked across the lawn to the Day House – another historic home that now houses the archives of the Stowe Center – where an archivist pulled out old maps and census records and diaries to give us a glimpse into the Victorian era. Getting to turn the pages of a diary from 1897 is an unforgettably tangible link to another time! But the archive tour was unforgettable for other reasons as well: it gave us a glimpse into the “hidden history” of Hartford’s black population in the 1800s. We saw the signature of Josiah Henson, the man who partly inspired Mrs. Stowe’s character of Uncle Tom but whose own story took an adventurous rather than a sacrificial turn; and we looked at a census record of black persons in Hartford that listed their names and ages and residence as well as, in neat and proper and unapologetic cursive, the names of their former masters. Seeing primary sources like this is a thought-provoking jolt from the past. That uncompromising dual history of Hartford residents continues into the next century, as we explore more fully in our next stop.
Fourth Stop: Take A Giant Step and Hartford’s Hidden History
Our fourth stop focuses on Louis Peterson and his 1953 play Take A Giant Step. Instead of traveling to a specific location, we explore Peterson’s Hartford through historic maps and census documents, Peterson’s old yearbook, and the 1959 filmed adaptation of Take A Giant Step. Watching the main character Spence struggle to chart the right course in Take A Giant Step is a moving glimpse into the hardship Peterson himself must have faced in Spence’s situation – cross-referencing the Hartford map and census records reveals that, like Spence, Peterson’s family was the only black family in their district. In Peterson’s old yearbook, flipping through the pages reveals photo upon photo of smiling or serious students; only three of them are black. But Peterson, like his character Spence, does not let this rough start hold him back. Even in the yearbook, his infectious grin leaps off the page; he went on to study at Yale and become a successful writer, actor, and professor. Although in the play Spence’s story ends on a note of unfulfilled hope, Peterson’s own life gives us a glimpse of the happy future Spence is striving for.
Fifth Stop: Lydia Sigourney and Ann Plato, Poets in Conversation
In the fifth stop we visit the 19th century again with a deep dive into poems by Lydia Sigourney and her contemporary Ann Plato, along with a close look at archival materials that relate to the two women writers. Ann Plato’s life is far less documented than Lydia Sigourney’s, but we get a glimpse into her life through the handwritten notes from a school inspector, praising her for her teaching skills, and through her own book of essays and poetry, published when she was just sixteen. Miss Plato’s advice to “young ladies…which are about my age” to “try and get your learning young” reflects her own personal experience: her determination to get an education at an early age, and her publication of a book as a teenager (Plato “Advice to Young Ladies”). Mrs. Sigourney, as Miss Plato’s far more famous and prolific contemporary, has far more surviving archives, ranging from letters of business to daguerreotypes to handwritten copies of her poems, written out for friends in elegant flowing cursive. However, her fame also brought tension to her marriage – especially when her husband’s failing businesses meant that her writing was supporting their family. The Connecticut Museum of Culture and History preserves a lengthy letter in its archives written by Mr. Charles Sigourney to his wife, expressing his affection for her and respect for her writing while at the same time voicing his concern for the toll her fame was taking on their marriage. It’s easy to blame him for not fully supporting his wife’s authorship, but the painstaking cross-outs and edits on nearly every line and the frequent references to his deep love and respect for his “beloved wife” tell their own story about the care and thought that Mr. Sigourney put into this message.
As a passionate advocate for women’s education, Lydia Sigourney opened a girl’s school with a friend when she was only twenty years old. During her time as a teacher, she taught not only girls from privileged white homes, but also African American and indigenous girls, and even the deaf girl Alice Cogswell, making her “the first known person in the United States to teach a deaf child how to read and write” (Cook, “Best-Selling Woman Author”). In her writing, Mrs. Sigourney continued her advocacy for victims of injustice, writing fiery poems on slavery such as “To The First Slave Ship,” where she exclaims that it would have been better for the first slave ship to “plunge…beneath the cleaving main” rather than begin the slave trade with its “stripes – tortures – unrelenting hate, / And death-gasps drown’d in slavery’s tears” (Sigourney, “Slave Ship”).
Over her lifetime, Lydia Sigourney holds an astonishing number of roles with dignity and compassion: teacher, poet, author, businesswoman, activist, mother, wife, and friend. The deeply affectionate obituaries and remembrances preserved in Trinity College’s archives speak to her success in filling all of these roles and winning love and respect from countless readers throughout America. Like that of Mrs. Stowe, Mrs. Sigourney’s writing style is quietly old-fashioned, but the two women share the same moral courage in speaking truth to injustice, a quality that will never be outdated.
Sixth Stop: Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Park
The penultimate author of the tour is the famous modernist poet Wallace Stevens, who lived and wrote in Hartford from 1932 until his death in 1955. His house on Westerly Terrace, near Elizabeth Park, is not open to the public, but we stopped by to look at its exterior. Across from the house stands the thirteenth and last of the granite markers that mark the walk he took to work every morning; each stone is engraved with one stanza from his poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” On the day that we visited, it had been snowing for several hours, and though it was early afternoon the sky already seemed to be dimming – which made it peculiarly fitting to read, on the snow-covered stone across from Stevens’ former home, “It was evening all afternoon. / It was snowing / And it was going to snow. / The blackbird sat / In the cedar-limbs” (Stevens, “Blackbird”). I think Stevens would surely have approved of such impeccably-timed literary text-painting!
Seventh Stop: Modern Hartford with Ocean Vuong
The final author of the tour brings us into our own century with the poetry and fiction of contemporary writer Ocean Vuong. Vuong’s prose and poetry brings to life a much grittier and more modern view of Hartford, yet still gives us occasional glimpses of beauty amid descriptions of “two a.m. gunshots” and “twenty bags of heroin” found under a passenger seat. In an excerpt from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous about taking a bike ride with his friend Trevor, the two boys suddenly see Hartford revealed as a “cluster of light” brimming with “a strange rare brilliance.” The wonder of the moment directly recalls Stevens’ “Of Hartford in a Purple Light” but also indirectly recalls the love for Hartford expressed in some way by each of the writers we encountered. Vuong’s writing rounds out the variety of authors that this journey explores and gives a glimpse into Hartford’s continuing legacy as a literary inspiration.
Dr. Partridge’s unique journey through Hartford’s writers will open your eyes to the literary treasures that Hartford is filled with, delighting your mind and refreshing your spirit with thoughtfully-selected gems of literature and poetry combined with physical locations, objects, and archives that illuminate the men and women who wrote such memorable words. This journey will leave you challenged and inspired by these amazing writers – you will never see Sigourney Street quite the same way again!
NB: I recognize that I made an unusual decision in referring to most of the authors by their last names, but choosing to call Lydia Sigourney “Mrs. Sigourney,” Ann Plato “Miss Plato,” and Harriet Beecher Stowe “Mrs. Stowe.” I decided for these three women either to write their full names, or to employ the title they used during their lives as seen in their archival materials (signatures on letters, references to them by other people, etc.). Given their dignity and elegance, it seems appropriate to me to avoid referring to these women in a way which in their lifetimes they would have considered a great impertinence.
AI Statement: AI was not used in writing this essay with the exception of a few Google searches to double-check some details regarding citations.