Background

Catharine Beecher was born on September 6, 1800, at East Hampton, Long Island, the eldest of the nine children of Rev. Lyman and Roxana (Foote) Beecher. Her father was pastor of the Congregational Church.

Education

Trained to industry by her mother, who "was remarkable not only for intelligence and culture, but for a natural taste and skill in domestic handicraft, " Catharine obtained her early education principally at home. When she was ten years of age her father removed to Litchfield, Connecticut. There she attended a private school at which what was taught was typical of the educational opportunity for girls of that period - the primary branches and drawing, painting, and music. When Catharine was sixteen her mother died and for two years thereafter, till her father married again, she shared with her aunt the care of the home. At nearly twenty she again took up the study of the piano and of drawing, and about a year and a half later began teaching in a private school for young ladies in New London, Connecticut. Largely by independent study she had gained a knowledge of mathematics, Latin, and philosophy.

Career

In 1823 by the sudden death of Catharine’s affianced lover, Prof. Alexander Metcalf Fisher of Yale College, both her plans for married life were shattered and her religious faith deeply shaken. Eventually determining, as she said, "to find happiness in living to do good, " she began in 1824 at Hartford, Connecticut, a small private school for young ladies. Success at once attended this venture which came to be a school of more than 150 pupils, famous for its advanced curriculum and its excellence of teaching in a day when school opportunities for women in the higher branches of learning were very few.

In 1832 when her father accepted the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, she disposed of her interests in the Hartford school and went west with him. In Cincinnati she organized "The Western Female Institute" on the model of her Hartford school. This enterprise flourished till 1837, when because of failing health and the financial stringency of that period of panic, she gave it up.

Having secured some restoration to vigor through rest and travel, she directed her energies to the promotion of several enterprises she had originated. One of these was, as she said, "the securing professional advantages of education for my sex equal to those bestowed on men. " And another, the finding in the East capable and devoted women teachers for the new and isolated communities of the South and West. In the interest of these movements she helped to organize in Boston "The Ladies' Society for Promoting Education at the West, " and secured the founding of "female colleges" at Burlington, Iowa, Quincy, Illinois, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Having had experience of the almost insuperable task of promoting higher education without endowment, she sought to develop a public opinion that would provide for "American women a liberal education by means of endowed institutions on the college plan of organization to include all that is gained by normal schools, and also to train women to be healthful, intelligent, and successful wives, mothers and housekeepers. " Her works on domestic science, also, and her public advocacy of this branch of knowledge helped to create a public opinion favorable to its entrance into the curriculum of the schools. With both voice and pen she was a determined opponent of woman suffrage and came to be one of the leaders of the early anti-suffragists.

Achievements

• Catharine Beecher was one of the early forces which created in the country the opportunity for the higher education of women, promoting it by her career as a teacher, her writings and lectures, and by the schools she helped to establish. She founded the Hartford Female Seminary in 1823, the Western Female Institute in 1832, and the Ladies Society for Promoting Education in the West in 1852. She also opened female colleges at Burlington, Iowa, Quincy, Illinois, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Catharine was also one of the leaders of the early anti-suffragists. The following are her chief writings: A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School (1841); Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book (1846); Physiology and Calisthenics for Schools and Families (1856); The Duty of American Women to their Country (1845); An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, with Reference to the Duty of American Females (1837); The Evils Suffered by American Women and American Children: the Causes and the Remedy (1846); Woman Suffrage and Woman's Profession (1871).

Works

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  • A Treatise on Domestic Economy: For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School (Classic Reprint)

    (The number of young women whose health is crushed, ere th...)

  • The New Housekeeper's Manual (American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection)

    ( Published in 1873 in New York, The New Housekeeper’s Ma...)

  • The American Woman's Home, Or, Principles of Domestic Science: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Letters to the People on Health and Happiness

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Truth Stranger Than Fiction: A Narrative of Recent Transactions, Involving Inquiries in Regard to the Principles of Honor, Truth, and Justice, which Obtain a Distinguished American University

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Religious Training of Children in the School, the Family, and the Church

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Letters To Catherine E. Beecher: In Reply To An Essay On Slavery And Abolitionism Addressed To A. E. Grimke (1838)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book

    (Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book)

  • An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism With reference to the duty of American females

Membership

Catharine Beecher was a founding member of the Ladies Society for Promoting Education in the West.

Personality

In appearance Catharine Beecher strongly resembled her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, as the portrait of her that has come down to us shows: endowed with great force of character and of personality, she possessed both charm and sparkling wit.

Connections

Catharine Beecher did not marry.

Father:

Rev. Lyman Beecher

Mother:

Roxana (Foote) Beecher

Sister:

Harriet (Beecher) Stowe

Brother:

Edward Beecher

Brother:

Henry Ward Beecher

References

• Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (Norton Library (Paperback))