Join us as the Stetson family comes to life through their letters.
Historian Christopher Clark will discuss the Stetson family letters (now at Historic Northampton) written while they were members of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry.
Selected excerpts from the letters will be read by Mary Beth Brooker as Dolly (the mother), Tahmie Der as Almira (the teenaged daughter), and Tom Goldscheider as James (the father).
The Stetson family came to Florence in 1843 -- 180 years ago -- to join the Northampton Association of Education and Industry. They wanted to live and work with people who shared their values of immediate emancipation of slavery and equal rights for all "without distinction of sex, color or condition, sect or religion.” The letters provide a close look at a single family before, during, and after their membership in an abolitionist, utopian community. Glimpses of Sojourner Truth, David Ruggles, and other leading figures of the community appear throughout the correspondence.
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