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Tag: Cincinnati

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati

Last week when I attended the National Braille Association conference, I was able to find some time to visit the Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati. I admit, last time when I was in Cincinnati, I didn’t know about it, otherwise I would have put it on my list, though maybe it was at the time when they were doing the renovations. But in anyway, everything has a reason, and this time there was one more reason to visit, they have a few building replicas we made for them in collaboration with Clovernook, but more about this later.

By the time I figured out my final schedule and matched it with the opening hours, there were exactly two hours left for me to visit. I can’t thank her enough, the executive director, Christina Hartlieb immediately responded to my email and at a one week notice she generously made her time available to personally give me a tour of the house.

This house is famous about Harriet Beecher Stowe, at the time, Harriet Beecher living there from 1832 until her marriage in 1836. After that she still lived in Cincinnati, and her experience in town contributed to her most famous novel, Uncle Tom’s cabin. The book was translated to at least 75 languages, and my personal connection to it was that when I was a kid, my mom read it to me in Hungarian.

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The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati

As I was planning my trip to Cincinnati, I came across the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center which sounded very exciting. I was wondering if there would be a touch tour available. When I checked the site, there was information about a tactile map and an audio tour, but I was looking for more. I contacted the museum, and James Harrington responded immediately offering to take me around.

The museum introduces visitors to the history of the underground railroad, starting from the African slave trade to arriving to the free states.

An additional surprise was that on the day of my visit, I was trying to figure out where to eat lunch before the visit, and I accidentally found out that a piece of the Berlin Wall can be seen right outside of the museum.

And how does the Berlin Wall belong there? As the Columbus Dispatch States, it “focuses on how Civil War era slaves reached freedom, and on freedom around the world”.

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Experience Art Differently: The Touch Tour at Cincinnati Art Museum

I heard about the accessibility program of the Cincinnati Art Museum from Sara Birkofer at the LEAD conference. She talked about the touch tours she organizes, I immediately knew I have to get there somehow. I went up to Sara after their presentation and asked her to include me on one of her tours. Spoiler alert, if this was the only thing I did in Cincinnati, it was already worth flying there.

We scheduled the tour on a day when the museum hosted an audio description workshop, but more about that later, first I’d like to talk about the touch tour.

Sara organizes these tours, and people are asked to schedule on about a month in advance. There is more information on their accessibility page.

Being an art exhibit, the museum doesn’t land itself well for a just walk in tactile tour. By default, there really isn’t anything to touch, or at least, one should not touch anything. Generally art museums are more difficult to make tactile.

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