Beecher, Catharine Esther

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BEECHER, Catharine Esther

Born 6 September 1800, East Hampton, New York; died 12 May 1878, Elvira, New York

Daughter of Lyman and Roxanne Foote Beecher

Sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catharine Esther Beecher was an educator and writer who attempted to expand the domestic power of women. Following the death of her mother, Beecher, age sixteen and the eldest of 13 children, assumed the family and household responsibilities.

After the death of her fiancé, Alexander Metcalf Fisher, Beecher established the Hartford Female Seminary in May 1823 with the money inherited from him. She also organized the Western Female Institute in Cincinnati (1832-1837) and the Ladies' Society for Promoting Education in the West, and helped to establish three female colleges (in Burlington, Iowa, in Quincy, Illinois, and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin). Although Beecher left the Hartford Female Seminary in 1831, it was considered one of the most significant advances made in early-19th-century education for women. It marked Beecher's first attempt to redefine a new relationship with American culture for herself and for other women.

The author of over 30 books, Beecher expanded the sentimental view of women as saintly and moral creatures, complements of their immoral and competitive mates. She maintained that the American woman had difficult and peculiar duties which derived mainly from the crudeness and disorder of an expanding nation. She asserted in Letters on Health and Happiness (1855) that "it is obvious that Providence designed that the chief responsibility of sustaining the family state, in all its sacred and varied relations and duties, should rest mainly on the female sex." Beecher's most popular volumes were A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841) and Domestic Receipts (1846). The former had three editions and 17 printings between 1841 and 1856, while the latter had ten editions and 17 printings. They were published for the use of young wives and reflect both the need for practical advice and the social milieu of mid-19th-century America.

In The Elements of Mental and Moral Philosophy (1831), Beecher asserted that woman was the moral guardian of her culture. Common sense must be used to determine morality, and personal conscience must dominate over doctrine. This position moved theology to social grounds and placed Beecher in direct conflict with her father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher, a Calvinist.

The major characteristic of Beecher's Christianity, however, was passivity, not social activity. She spoke against active abolitionism, asserting in An Essay on Slavery (1837) that "Christianity is a system of persuasion, tending, by kind and gentle influence, to make men willing to leave their sins." Beecher maintained women had a proper place, a proper sphere, and that place was out of politics and within the home, influencing men through quiet, proper petition and through the education of their children.

One of Beecher's concerns was the ill health of American women. She described reported symptoms of female invalidism in Woman Suffrage and Woman's Profession (1871), frequently using the term "delicate." She surveys women in various American cities, listing such symptoms as sick headaches, pelvic disorder, consumption, dyspepsia, asthma, bronchitis, liver disorder, palsy, scrofula, and chills, adding with alarming frequency: "Do not know one perfectly healthy woman in the place." Because of Beecher's conviction that the illness of American women was both symptom and cause of the disorder in American society, she wrote The American Woman's Home (1869) with her sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, as coauthor. The home and the guardian of its healthful state, woman, was intertwined in Beecher's mind with the state of American society. Thus she elevated the importance of women's health and role to national importance. She asserted that women, like men who must be trained for professions, must be fully trained for their roles in the classroom and the family. Her religious language was a conscious attempt to invoke religious sanction of her assertion of the importance of woman's role in the home. She perceived "the family state as the earthly illustration of the heavenly kingdom, and in it woman is its chief minister."

In this haven of secularized religion, the home, Beecher demanded better ventilation, the introduction of green plants, dress reform, proper food, and the avoidance of too much "intellectual taxation." She and her sister provided many practical suggestions for yards and gardens, for infant care, for earth closets (commodes), for everything necessary for the maintenance of the home.

As might be expected, Beecher was an avid opponent of woman's suffrage, attempting instead to expand the woman's base of domestic power. Although she advocated democracy, she did not feel it led to women's active participation in politics and to furthering social change. Instead she asserted there was a social order based on age, health, and the most important distinction, gender; thus there was still hierarchy in the American democracy.

Beecher is a transitional figure whose writings influenced women to move from a state of subordination to one in which they attempted to secure a greater role in their changing, shifting society. She was confronted by a competitive society in which men aggressively sought wealth and position, and she perceived this activity as unworthy of women. Women, unlike men, could effect change only by influence and passivity. Aggression and force were male prerogatives. Beecher's solution was to create a quiet eye of the storm and to call it the "American Home." There women could rule supreme and men could return for moral refreshment and rest. In this quiet haven, the American Home, Beecher placed her sentimentalized version of the American woman. She herself never married.

Other Works:

Suggestions Respecting Improvements in Education (1829). Arithmetic Simplified (1832). Primary Geography (1833). The Lyceum Arithmetic (1835). An Essay on the Education of Female Teachers (1835). Lectures on the Difficulty of Religion (1836). The Moral Instructor (1838). Letters to Persons Who Are Engaged in Domestic Service (1842). The Duty of American Women to Their Country (1845). Truths Stranger Than Fiction (1850). The True Remedy for the Wrongs of Women (1852). Physiology and Calisthenics (1856). Common Sense Applied to Religion (1857). Calisthenic Exercises (1860). An Appeal to the People (1860). Religious Training of Children in the School (1864). Principles of Domestic Science (with H. B. Stowe, 1870). Work for All, and Other Tales (1871). Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator (1872). Miss B.'s Housekeeper and Healthkeeper (1873). The New Housekeeper's Manual (1873). Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions (1874).

Bibliography:

Bruland, E. B., Great Debates: Ethical Reasoning and Social Change in Antebellum America: the Exchange Between Angelina Grimke and Catherine Beecher (1990, 1991). Cross, B. M., The Educated Woman in America (1965). Douglas, A., The Feminization of American Culture (1977). Grimke, A. E., Letters to Catherine E. Beecher: In Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, Addressed to A. E. Grimke (1978, 1883). Harveson, E. M., Catharine E. Beecher (1932). Lindley, S. H., Woman's Profession in the Life and Thought of Catherine Beecher: A Study of Religion and Reform (1974). Sklar, K. K., Household Divinity: A Life of Catherine Beecher, (dissertation, 1969). Sklar, K. K., Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (1973). Woody, T., A History of Women's Education in the United States (1966).