{"id":386,"date":"2013-01-15T20:13:12","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T20:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/?p=386"},"modified":"2013-01-17T17:55:30","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T17:55:30","slug":"joan-hedrick-pbs-stowe-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/2013\/01\/15\/joan-hedrick-pbs-stowe-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"Joan Hedrick to appear in PBS documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In 1982, a Trinity student wrote a senior research paper chock-full of quotes by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist who fought to end slavery through her most famous novel, Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em>. The professor who read that paper was Joan Hedrick, Charles A. Dana Professor of History, and the paper would turn out to have more of a significant impact on her life than she realized at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read the quotes and I thought, Who is this person? I need to read more<\/em>,\u201d Hedrick said about Stowe.<\/p>\n

Hedrick did just that, and she was so struck by Stowe\u2019s writing and bravery that she went on to dedicate the next several years of her life to researching one of the most influential figures in American history. Hedrick\u2019s curiosity and research culminated in a biography of Stowe, appropriately titled Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life<\/em>. Hedrick was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the book in 1995, roughly 13 years after she first read Stowe\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Hedrick said that one must be very fond of someone to spend as much time as she has with Stowe, and the latest outcome of her interest is an appearance on a new PBS \u201cAmerican Experience\u201d film, \u201cThe Abolitionists.\u201d The three-part docudrama\u2014part documentary and part historical re-enactment that began airing on January 8\u2014includes the story of the influence of\u00a0Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em> and the resulting spotlight placed on the author, a Hartford native. Three Connecticut professors, including Hedrick, Yale Professor David W. Blight, and Wesleyan Professor Lois Brown, are among approximately a dozen historians and writers from around the country interviewed for the series.<\/p>\n

In addition to the documentary, Hedrick participated in a panel discussion on January 7 that was sponsored by the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, where Hedrick, now the world\u2019s foremost authority on Stowe, has been a trustee for nearly 20 years. The panel discussion followed an advance screening of episode two of \u201cThe Abolitionists,\u201d which airs on Tuesday, January 15 at 9:00 p.m. EST, and is the episode in which Hedrick is interviewed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very excited that they would be featuring Stowe in a PBS documentary,\u201d Hedrick said when she was first approached by PBS, adding that Stowe deserves the recognition for \u201cher writing and her passion for social justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hedrick \u00a0recently appeared in an article about “The Abolitionists” in\u00a0The Hartford Courant, <\/em>which you can read here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read Hedrick’s blog post<\/a> on The Huffington Post<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Learn more about PBS documentary\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1982, a Trinity student wrote a senior research paper chock-full of quotes by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist who fought to end slavery through her most famous novel, Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin. The professor who read that paper was Joan Hedrick, Charles A. Dana Professor of History, and the paper would turn out to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,3],"tags":[94,92,65,51,54,91,93],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/facultyhighlights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}