Catharine Esther Beecher Popular Books

Catharine Esther Beecher Biography & Facts

Catharine Esther Beecher (September 6, 1800 – May 12, 1878) was an American educator known for her forthright opinions on female education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of kindergarten into children's education. She published the advice manual The American Woman's Home with her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1869. Some sources spell her first name as "Catherine". Biography Early life and education Beecher was born September 6, 1800, in East Hampton, New York, the daughter of minister and religious leader Lyman Beecher and Roxana (Foote) Beecher. Among her siblings were writer and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, along with clergymen Henry Ward Beecher and Charles Beecher. Beecher was educated at home until she was ten years old, when she was sent to Litchfield Female Academy in Litchfield, Connecticut. She taught herself subjects not commonly offered to women, including math, Latin, and philosophy.She took over the domestic duties of her household at the age of 16, following her mother's death. In 1821, Beecher founded a school for women in New Haven, Connecticut. Catharine was engaged to marry Alexander M. Fisher, head of the Mathematics Department at Yale College, but he died at sea before the wedding took place. She never married. Female seminary To provide educational opportunities for others, in 1823 Beecher and her sister, Mary Foote Beecher Perkins, co-founded the Hartford Female Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, where she taught until 1832. The private girls' school had many well-known alumnae. Comprehending the deficiencies of existing textbooks, she prepared, primarily for use in her own school, some elementary books in arithmetic, a work on theology, and one on mental and moral philosophy. The last was never published, although printed and used as a college textbook. She was constantly making experiments, and practicing them upon the girls, weighing all their food before they ate it, holding that Graham flour and the Graham diet were better for them than richer food. Ten of her pupils invited her to dine with them at a restaurant. She accepted the invitation, and the excellent dinner changed her views. Thereafter they were served with more palatable food. Opposition to Indian Removal Bill In 1829 and 1830, Beecher led a women's movement to protest the Indian Removal Bill of President Andrew Jackson. The protest was the first national campaign on the part of women in the United States. In the bill, Jackson requested that Congress approve the use of federal money to resettle southeastern American Indians, including the Cherokee, to land west of the Mississippi River. In response, Beecher published a "Circular Addressed to the Benevolent Ladies of the U. States", dated December 25, 1829, calling on women to send petitions to Congress protesting the removal. In the circular, she wrote, "It has become almost a certainty that these people are to have their lands torn from them, and to be driven into western wilds and to final annihilation, unless the feelings of a humane and Christian nation shall be aroused to prevent the unhallowed sacrifice." Congress nevertheless passed the bill, and the Indian Removal Act became law on May 28, 1830. Midlife in the West In 1832, Beecher moved with her father to Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, where he became head of the new Lane Seminary, to campaign for more schools and teachers in the frontier. There she opened a female seminary, which, on account of her failing health, was discontinued after two years. She then devoted herself to the development of an extended plan for the physical, social, intellectual, and moral education of women, to be promoted through a national board. For nearly 40 years, she labored perseveringly in this work, organizing societies for training teachers, establishing plans for supplying the territories with good educators, writing, pleading, and traveling. Her object, as she described it, was "to unite American women in an effort to provide a Christian education for 2,000,000 children in our country." She made her field of labor especially in the West and South, and sought the aid of educated women throughout the United States. Later life and death In 1837, Beecher retired from administrative work. After returning East she started the Ladies' Society for Promoting Education in the West. In 1847 she co-founded the Board of National Popular Education with William Slade, a former Congressman and then governor of Vermont. In 1852 she founded the American Women's Educational Association. Their goal was to recruit and train teachers for frontier schools and send women into the West to civilize the young. Their efforts became a model for future schools developed in the West. Woman's great mission is to train immature, weak, and ignorant creatures to obey the laws of God; the physical, the intellectual, the social, and the moral. It was claimed that hundreds of the best teachers the West received were sent under the patronage of this system. To a certain extent the plans succeeded, and were found beneficial, but the careers of the teachers were mostly short, for they soon married. In The American Woman's Home, published in 1869, Beecher and her sister presented a model home from a woman's perspective. The kitchen was inspired by a cook's galley in a steamship. A movable partition on wheels provided flexibility and privacy in the small home, and also served as a wardrobe. Chapters of the book discussing ventilation and heating anticipated modern central heating. On May 12, 1878, Beecher died from apoplexy. Views on and advocacy of education In 1841 Beecher published A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School, a book that discussed the underestimated importance of women's roles in society. The book was edited and re-released the following year in its final form. Catharine Beecher was a strong advocate of the inclusion of daily physical education in women's schooling, and developed a program of calisthenics performed to music. In 1831, Catharine Beecher suggested that teachers read aloud to students from passages by writers with elegant styles, "to accustom the ear to the measurement of the sentences and the peculiar turns of expression". She went on to have the students imitate the piece just read using similar words, style, and turns of phrase in order to develop "a ready command of the language and easy modes of expression". In 1846, Beecher pronounced that women, not men, should educate children, and established schools for training teachers in Western cities. She advocated that young ladies find godly work as Christian teachers away from the larger Eastern cities. The Board of National Popular Education, which was her idea, trained teachers in four-week sessions in Connecticut and then sent them out West. She believed that women had a higher calling to shape children and society. Along with a Treatise on Domestic E.... Discover the Catharine Esther Beecher popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Catharine Esther Beecher books.