You may be using an older version of the Adobe Flash Player. To enjoy multimedia content on WGBH.org, please click here to upgrade to the latest version of the free Flash player.

Evening with Henry and Harriet Beecher
December 6, 2007
Philip McFarland historian
Debby Applegate writer

Philip McFarland and Debby Applegate discuss the life of abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, and that of her brother, the influential preacher Henry Ward Beecher.

Historian Philip McFarland's Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe follows the Reverend Lyman Beecher, a prominent theologian, as he moves his family west to Cincinnati, then a frontier boomtown. More than the portrait of a family and its most famous daughter, Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe is a detailed rendering of America in the midst of a social and demographic explosion.

Debby Applegate's The Most Famous Man in America describes how, in the 1850s, Henry Ward Beecher's spectacular sermons at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights had made him so wildly popular that the ferries from Manhattan to Brooklyn were dubbed 'Beecher Boats'. However, It all fell apart in 1872, when an accusation that Beecher had been having an affair with a parishioner led to a salacious trial that garnered more newspaper headlines than the Civil War.

History | Literature & Philosophy
Authors | Profiles | Race | Spirituality & Religion
WGBH
Boston Athenaeum
Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the 21st Century
James Orbinski
00:59:29
Physician and humanitarian James Orbinski discusses his new book, An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century.
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Town Hall: Part I
Malik Neal
00:50:40
CSI:NY's Hill Harper and filmmaker Gary Ross join local students and a panel of esteemed local experts for a timely Town Hall Meeting entitled, "Lincoln, Douglass and the Transformative Power of Words." The event seeks to underscore the importance of education in the lives of Abraham Lincol
Creativity and Mood
Paul Muldoon
01:28:52
Poet and songwriter Paul Muldoon joins poet/playright Elizabeth Swados to explore the relationship between creativity and mood.
Matters of Faith
Cornel West
00:44:30
Radio host Christopher Lydon hosts a discussion on faith with Princeton professor Cornel West, Harvard Divinity professor Harvey Cox, and novelist Mary Gordon.
Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
Andrew Bacevich
01:21:50
Conservative historian Andrew Bacevich discusses his provocative book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Bacevich joins Charles Sennott, founder of the online news service GlobalPost, to discuss the challenges the Obama administration faces in Afghanistan.
Cynthia Lopez: WAM! 2009 Keynote
Cynthia Lopez
01:00:49
Cynthia Lopez, vice president of American Documentary's P.O.V., delivers the keynote address at the 2009 Women, Action & the Media conference.
Image of The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
Author: Debby Applegate
Publisher: Three Leaves (2007)
Binding: Paperback, 560 pages
Login or register to post comments