Welcome to the Edgemont Inn

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Harriet Beecher Stowe House at 2950 Gilbert Avenue was known as the Edgemont Inn. The first floor was a tavern space which was listed in the Green Book and served a wide group of Black patrons. The upper floors were an African American boarding house operated by a Black woman named Mrs. Irene Bacon. The house had been a landmark of the abolition and suffrage movements, and visitors of the Edgemont Inn were aware of its history as home to the Beecher family a century earlier. While the past of the house may have been inspiring, the Edgemont Inn has its own important history. It was a place for discussion and action in a new chapter of Black freedom and a safe gathering and living space for African Americans in the segregated landscape in Cincinnati.

Welcome to the Edgemont Inn! Explore the house's fundamental role by using the upper menu bar to navigate each section.

The location is crucial in understanding why the Edgemont Inn attracted African American visitors and residents. The Edgemont Inn was located within the epicenter of a Black neighborhood. Walnut Hills has been one of the African American enclaves in Cincinnati. While Walnut Hills had been integrated in the 1800s, since the 1920s, the Black portions of the neighborhood expanded due to Cincinnati's rapidly increasing African American population. Also, the Edgemont Inn was a convenient place to access public transportation. The house was located on Gilbert Avenue, the main street that connected the hilltop and downtown. Peebles' Corner, a famous streetcar intersection on Gilbert Avenue and East McMillan Street, was only a few blocks south from the house. The Edgemont Inn was a safe and comfortable place for African Americans to access and stay in.

The Edgemont Inn was located within the Black business district, centered at Lincoln and Gilbert Avenues. The surrounding area had several neighborhood institutions, such as the Manse Hotel, a landmark accommodation for African Americans, and the headquarters of the  Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women's Club. A few blocks Southeast, there was the Frederick Douglass school, a public school serving African American children, and the Brown Chapel, an AME church.

During segregation, Black Cincinnatians experienced discrimination and racial inequality that limited their access to public venues, vocational and professional training, education, and medical care. The Edgemont Inn became a space for meetings where community leaders and associations gathered and discussed cultural, social, and political issues Black citizens confronted in their everyday lives in the 1930s.

Throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Edgemont Inn hosted a number of political rallies and meetings. Embracing the tavern space and boarding house on upper floors, the house was sometimes called the "Edgemont Hotel" in local newspaper articles like those listed below.

The Edgemont Inn provided African Americans a safe lodging and living space. In the 1930s, a practice of housing discrimination, known as redlining, reinforced segregation by determining predominantly Black neighborhoods as a high lending risk. Limited homeownership and segregation resulted in a short housing supply for African American populations. Historian Charles F. Casey-Leininger asserts, "by 1943, housing vacancies in African American areas of the city had plummeted less than 3/10 of 1 percent, while white areas of the city had vacancy rates of 2 to 3 percent. (Casey-Leininger; 2008)" The house's large number of rooms on the upper floors was a good space for several Black individuals and families to stay. According to the 1940 U.S. census, 19 African American residents lived in the house. From 1941 to 1948, the house was listed as the "Edgemont Apartment '' with 12 rooms in the city directories.

The idea of converting the house into a memorial and a community center had circulated since the 1930s. For instance, on the afternoon of September 17, 1935, people gathered at the Community Chest Building and discussed the potential purchase of the house. However, they were unable to agree on a course of action. Albert E. Smith announced: "further investigation would be made." In 1939,   Rep. David D. Turpeau , a prominent African American minister at the Calvary Methodist Church in Cincinnati and Ohio state representative, introduced a resolution to preserve the house at the State House of Representatives. While the 1939 resolution did not pass, Turpeau continuously played an instrumental role in preserving the Harriet Beecher Stowe residence as a state memorial. He is listed on the 1943 donor plaque.

The Edgemont Inn period shows a little-known chapter of the history of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House. From 1930 to the late 1940s, the house transitioned from a residence to a community gathering space associated with a communal dwelling. Through this transition, the house provided a safe space to gather, discuss, and live for African American communities in the segregated urban landscape. The space has been used for Black social, political, and professional groups to present their Power of the Voice to make positive changes in their community.

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Please contact us by emailing:  Harriet Beecher Stowe House .