{"id":718,"date":"2026-09-07T19:49:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T19:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=718"},"modified":"2026-09-07T20:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:42:17","slug":"the-hartford-literary-journey-an-exploration-of-hartfords-most-influential-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=718","title":{"rendered":"The Hartford Literary Journey: An Exploration of Hartford\u2019s Most Influential Writers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hartford Literary Journey: An Exploration of Hartford\u2019s Most Influential Writers<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

By Olivia Tummescheit<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>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\u2019s literature and history.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First Stop: A Literary Look at the Wadsworth Atheneum<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>
\nThe tour begins on a fall morning with a walk down Hartford\u2019s Main Street to the Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut\u2019s largest (and one of the United States\u2019 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 \u201cFall of the Charter Oak,\u201d read in front of Brownell\u2019s magnificent painting of the famous Connecticut oak, makes an unintentionally humorous counterpoint to Twain\u2019s decidedly mischievous description of the tree\u2019s importance in his \u201cGlimpse of Hartford.\u201d Mrs. Sigourney mourns the \u201cloved wreck\u201d of \u201cthe monarch of the plain\u2026that brave old Oak\u2026our tutelary tree\u201d in nine sentimental rhymed stanzas (Sigourney, \u201cCharter Oak\u201d). Twain describes being shown various furniture made from the great Charter Oak and his own reactions ranging from gazing \u201cwith inexpressible solicitude\u201d to finally just \u201cI worshipped\u201d (Twain, \u201cGlimpse of Hartford\u201d). Then he visits the Atheneum itself, where he finds still more pieces of the Charter Oak made into \u201ca walking stick, a\u00a0needlecase, a dog collar, a three-legged stool, a bootjack, a diner-table, a ten-pen alley, a\u00a0tooth-pick, a\u2014\u201d (We get the idea, Mr. Clemens, thank you!) (Twain, \u201cGlimpse of\u00a0Hartford\u201d). The excursion closes with Stevens\u2019 \u201cOf Hartford in a Purple Light,\u201d bringing us a glimpse of 20th century Hartford with \u201cthe river, the railroad, the cathedral\u201d (Stevens \u201cHartford\u201d).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Second Stop: Nook Farm with Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>
\nThe second stop on our literary tour is Mark Twain\u2019s magnificent mansion on Farmington Avenue. The readings, unexpectedly, pair Mark Twain with his neighbor and contemporary Charles Dudley Warner, who \u2013 like Lydia Sigourney \u2013 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\u2019s series of dialogues entitled\u00a0<\/span>Backlog Studies<\/span><\/i>\u00a0\u2013 named after the large log that supports the fire in a fireplace \u2013 that capture the spirit of conversations around the fire in their neighborhood of Nook Farm. Although Warner\u2019s 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\u00a0<\/span>Backlog Studies<\/span><\/i>\u00a0as \u201cOur Next-Door Neighbor.\u201d Warner\u2019s writing is less flamboyant than\u00a0Twain\u2019s, but\u00a0has a\u00a0charm\u00a0all its own. There is the gentle banter between Warner (\u201cThe Fire-Tender\u201d) and his wife Susan (\u201cThe Mistress\u201d); Warner, speaking of how households are run, says that \u201cwhen the mistress is absent, this room\u2026does not look at all like the same place; it is stiff, and seems to lack a soul. […] When she\u00a0returns\u2026the room is transformed. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0do it in a week.\u201d Mrs. Warner replies, \u201cThat is the first time I ever knew a man admit he couldn\u2019t do anything if he had time.\u201d In another study, Warner describes himself \u201cin the adjoining library, pretending to write; but it is a poor day for ideas. He has written his wife\u2019s name about eleven hundred times, and cannot get any farther\u201d (Warner,\u00a0<\/span>Backlog Studies: Third Study<\/span><\/i>).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But besides their innate charm and humor, Warner\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Backlog Studies<\/span><\/i>\u00a0provide an illuminating commentary on my other two favorite authors from the tour, the literary\u00a0sensations\u00a0Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lydia Sigourney. Warner and his friends spend much of the\u00a0dialogues\u00a0discussing what the introduction to\u00a0<\/span>Backlog Studies<\/span><\/i>\u00a0calls \u201c\u2018The Woman Question,\u2019 that is, what role should women play in society?\u201d (Golden, \u201cIntroduction to\u00a0<\/span>Backlog Studies<\/span><\/i>\u201d). One particularly relevant dialogue tackles the growing number of female authors in particular, but rather than universally condemning (or approving) the \u201cprominence women have\u201d in the production of \u201cthe literature of this day,\u201d 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\u2019s defense of why \u201cthe novel is immortal\u201d \u2013 because it deals with human nature (Warner,\u00a0<\/span>Backlog Studies: Sixth Study<\/span><\/i>). While\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0easy to bristle at the\u00a0sometimes condescending\u00a0tone taken towards some (but by no means\u00a0<\/span>all<\/span><\/i>) of the women writers mentioned, what stood out to me is\u00a0rather the\u00a0courtesy and thoughtfulness of the discussion. The debate turns on the\u00a0<\/span>quality\u00a0<\/span><\/i>of writing that women are producing; although the friends deem much of popular fiction written by women either \u201cflavorless as water-gruel\u201d or \u201cimmoral in tendency,\u201d they acknowledge in contrast that \u201cthe foremost living writers of fiction are women\u201d (Warner,\u00a0<\/span>Backlog Studies: Sixth Study<\/span><\/i>). While modern readers may not evaluate literature on the same terms as the Nook Farm friends, especially\u00a0with regard to\u00a0morality, the debate over what makes literature worthwhile is still relevant today. Inside Mark Twain\u2019s own home, the influence of his beloved wife Livy Clemens is felt in every room with the dual emphasis on elegance and comfort. It\u2019s 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\u00a0in particular was\u00a0her husband\u2019s 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\u00a0write\u00a0books \u2013 and one of them, a friend and neighbor of Livy, would set out to\u00a0write\u00a0a serial story and end up changing history.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Third Stop: Three Women Writers of Nook Farm<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>
\nOur next stop introduces a trifecta of literary women with deep connections to Twain and Warner\u2019s 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 \u201cThe Yellow Wallpaper,\u201d 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\u2019s rights, arguing in one of her many writings that the Constitution, if properly interpreted,\u00a0actually guaranteed\u00a0women 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\u00a0<\/span>Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/span><\/i>. This book \u201cbroke American publishing records\u201d and was instrumental in winning readers to the abolitionist cause (Burgess, \u201cHartford\u2019s Resident Celebrity\u201d). Her Nook\u00a0Farm house\u00a0is painted an unobtrusive gray and stands behind a screen of\u00a0trees,\u00a0its interior\u00a0furnished\u00a0comfortably but not opulently \u2013 a thought-provoking contrast to Mark Twain\u2019s flamboyant mansion just across the lawn. Mrs. Stowe\u2019s home may be understated, but sparks fly in\u00a0<\/span>Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin\u00a0<\/span><\/i>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\u2019s conscience to the actual evils of slavery around them, causing Lincoln to remark on meeting her, \u201cSo you\u2019re the little lady that wrote the book that started this great war\u201d (Burgess, \u201cHartford\u2019s Resident Celebrity\u201d).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What compels me most about Mrs. Stowe is the morally direct compassion and courage in her writing. In\u00a0<\/span>Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin\u00a0<\/span><\/i>she offers a moving variety of characters who react in\u00a0different ways\u00a0to the issue of slavery. Mr. Shelby\u2019s uncomfortable \u201cwe men of the world must wink pretty hard at various things\u201d and slave trader Haley\u2019s callous \u201cAll I want is a\u00a0livin\u2019,\u00a0you know\u201d both work to condone slavery, but Mrs. Bird\u2019s impassioned declaration that the law against sheltering runaway slaves is \u201ca shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I\u2019ll break it\u2026the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do!\u201d convinces her husband to shelter Eliza (Stowe, \u201cExcerpts from\u00a0<\/span>Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/span><\/i>\u201d). 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 \u2013 a\u00a0<\/span>novel<\/span><\/i>\u00a0\u2013 to convince the male-dominated society of the United States that slavery had to be abolished at all costs. Mrs. Stowe\u2019s combination of a thrilling, well-crafted story with a fiery condemnation of injustice in general and slavery in particular make\u00a0<\/span>Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin\u00a0<\/span><\/i>well worth reading today.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s own house, we walked across the lawn to the Day House \u2013 another historic home that now houses the archives of the Stowe Center \u2013 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 \u201chidden history\u201d of Hartford\u2019s black population in the 1800s. We saw the signature of Josiah Henson, the man who partly inspired Mrs. Stowe\u2019s 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\u00a0in\u00a0our next stop.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fourth Stop:\u00a0<\/span><\/b>Take A Giant Step<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u00a0and Hartford\u2019s Hidden History<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>
\nOur fourth stop focuses on Louis Peterson and his 1953 play\u00a0<\/span>Take\u00a0A\u00a0Giant Step<\/span><\/i>. Instead of traveling to a specific location, we explore Peterson\u2019s Hartford through historic maps and census documents, Peterson\u2019s old yearbook, and the 1959\u00a0filmed\u00a0adaptation\u00a0of\u00a0<\/span>Take\u00a0A\u00a0Giant Step<\/span><\/i>. Watching the main character Spence struggle to chart the right course in\u00a0<\/span>Take\u00a0A\u00a0Giant Step<\/span><\/i>\u00a0is a moving glimpse into the hardship Peterson himself must have faced in Spence\u2019s situation \u2013 cross-referencing the Hartford map and census records reveals that, like Spence, Peterson\u2019s family was the only black family in their district. In Peterson\u2019s old yearbook, flipping through the pages reveals\u00a0photo\u00a0upon\u00a0photo\u00a0of smiling or serious students; only\u00a0<\/span>three\u00a0<\/span><\/i>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\u2019s story ends on a note of unfulfilled hope, Peterson\u2019s own life gives us a glimpse of the happy future Spence is striving for.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fifth Stop: Lydia Sigourney and Ann Plato, Poets in Conversation<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>
\nIn 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\u2019s life is far less documented than Lydia Sigourney\u2019s, 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\u2019s advice to \u201cyoung ladies\u2026which\u00a0are about my age\u201d to \u201ctry and get your learning young\u201d 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 \u201cAdvice to Young Ladies\u201d). Mrs. Sigourney, as Miss Plato\u2019s 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 \u2013 especially when her husband\u2019s 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\u2019s easy to blame him for not fully supporting his wife\u2019s authorship, but the painstaking cross-outs and edits on nearly every line and the frequent references to his deep love and respect for his \u201cbeloved wife\u201d tell their own story about the care and thought that Mr. Sigourney put into this message.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a passionate advocate for women\u2019s education, Lydia Sigourney opened a girl\u2019s 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 \u201cthe first known person in the United States to teach a deaf child how to read and write\u201d (Cook, \u201cBest-Selling Woman Author\u201d). In her writing, Mrs. Sigourney continued her advocacy for victims of injustice, writing fiery poems on slavery such as \u201cTo The First Slave Ship,\u201d where she exclaims that it would have been better for the first slave ship to \u201cplunge\u2026beneath the cleaving main\u201d rather than begin the slave trade with its \u201cstripes \u2013 tortures \u2013 unrelenting hate, \/ And death-gasps\u00a0drown\u2019d\u00a0in slavery\u2019s tears\u201d (Sigourney, \u201cSlave Ship\u201d).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over her lifetime, Lydia Sigourney holds an astonishing number of roles with dignity and compassion: teacher, poet, author,\u00a0businesswoman, activist, mother, wife, and friend. The deeply affectionate obituaries and remembrances preserved in Trinity College\u2019s archives speak to her success in filling\u00a0all of\u00a0these roles and winning love and respect from countless readers throughout America. Like that of Mrs. Stowe, Mrs. Sigourney\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sixth Stop: Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Park<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>
\nThe 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\u00a0to look\u00a0at 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 \u201cThirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.\u201d 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 \u2013 which made it peculiarly fitting to read, on the snow-covered stone across from Stevens\u2019 former home, \u201cIt was evening all afternoon. \/ It was snowing \/ And it was going to snow. \/ The blackbird sat \/ In the cedar-limbs\u201d (Stevens, \u201cBlackbird\u201d). I think Stevens would surely have approved of such\u00a0impeccably-timed\u00a0literary text-painting!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seventh Stop: Modern Hartford with Ocean Vuong<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>
\nThe final author of the tour brings us into our own century with the poetry and fiction of contemporary writer Ocean Vuong. Vuong\u2019s prose and poetry brings to life a much grittier and more modern view of\u00a0Hartford, yet\u00a0still gives us occasional glimpses of beauty amid descriptions of \u201ctwo a.m. gunshots\u201d and \u201ctwenty bags of heroin\u201d found under a passenger seat. In an excerpt from\u00a0<\/span>On\u00a0Earth\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0Briefly Gorgeous<\/span><\/i>\u00a0about taking a bike ride with his friend Trevor, the two boys suddenly see Hartford revealed as a \u201ccluster of light\u201d brimming with \u201ca\u00a0strange rare\u00a0brilliance.\u201d The wonder of the moment directly recalls Stevens\u2019 \u201cOf Hartford in a Purple Light\u201d but also indirectly recalls the love for Hartford expressed in some way by each of the writers we\u00a0encountered. Vuong\u2019s writing rounds out the variety of authors that this journey explores and gives a glimpse into Hartford\u2019s continuing legacy as a literary inspiration.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Partridge\u2019s unique journey through Hartford\u2019s writers will open your eyes to the literary treasures that Hartford is filled with, delighting your mind and refreshing your spirit with\u00a0thoughtfully-selected\u00a0gems 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 \u2013 you will never see Sigourney Street quite the same way again!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cMrs. Sigourney,\u201d Ann Plato \u201cMiss Plato,\u201d and Harriet Beecher Stowe \u201cMrs. Stowe.\u201d I decided for these three women either to\u00a0write 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\u00a0appropriate to\u00a0me to avoid referring to these women in a way which in their lifetimes they would have considered a great impertinence.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>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.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hartford Literary Journey: An Exploration of Hartford\u2019s Most Influential Writers\u00a0 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 … Continue reading The Hartford Literary Journey: An Exploration of Hartford\u2019s Most Influential Writers<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tours-and-teaching","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":721,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions\/721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}