Catherine Beecher
1800-1878
Catherine Beecher was one of the foremost supporters both of education for women and women as educators. As a member of the respected Beecher family, including her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, Beecher was educated as any young lady would have been in the early 19th century. She was taught at home until she was ten years old, and then was sent to a private finishing school. She was greatly dismayed that she was never taught any of the traditionally masculine fields- Greek, Latin, mathematics, or science. In 1824, Beecher opened the Hartford Female Seminary in Hartford Connecticut, where girls were taught the same subjects as young men were taught, along with the traditionally feminine subjects, such as dancing and needlework. Beecher attracted many good educators to teach at her school, making it one of the best schools for girls in the United States. Beecher spent the rest of her life writing on the education of women, especially in public schools, and opening schools for girls.
Beecher was a pioneer of public education in two ways. First, she promoted the idea of physical health as a subject appropriate for schools. Most schools of the nineteenth and early twentieth century never addressed the issue of health or exercise. Beecher not only supported the idea of physical education, she also developed her own system of calisthenics for women. The Progressives would later take up this avenue of education and promote its importance. Second, Beecher changed the role of women as teachers. Beecher thought that God designed women to be teachers; it was a woman’s moral obligation to teach. With this belief, Beecher established several colleges to educate women to be teachers, not unlike Mann’s Normal School for Teachers. Because of Beecher’s influence, women who were teachers were accepted in society. Teaching became a respectable and appropriate vocation for women.
Michelle Yuen 05/05/2003