Catherine+Beecher

Section 10, Group 2

//Shaker: Catherine Beecher//

//Basic Work:// //Catherine Beecher was a noted educator---she was the founder of schools as well as many educational associations. She also spent much of her life writing about and promoting education for women. She is known for her opinions on women’s education as well as her support for the benefits of incorporating kindergarten into children’s education.//

//Key Work:// //Beecher went to a private school where she was taught the limited curriculum available to girls, an experience which left her wanting more educational opportunities and led her to teach herself subjects not offered to women. She grew up to provide these educational opportunities to other women by opening the Hartford Female Seminary in 1823. She published a book in 1841 called “A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School,” which discussed the underestimated importance of women’s roles in society. Beecher founded The American Women’s Educational Association in 1852, an organization that focused on furthering educational opportunities for women. She also played an important part in founding the Western Female Institute in Cincinnati, The Ladies Society for Promoting Education in the West, and in establishing women’s colleges in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Beecher adamently expressed her belief that children need to be allowed to express themselves freely in environments suited to them in order to become healthy adults.//

//Key Personnel: Beecher’s father, Lymann Beecher, helped establish the Western Female Institute. Her sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was an alumnus of the Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminar// //Catherine Beecher was a shaker because she challenged the current educational system at the time, which tended to deemphasize the importance of educating women the way men were educated. Though she believed in the importance of women raising children and being homemakers, she felt becoming a teacher was a natural extension of the woman’s role in the family. Her most important contribution was in helping to equalize the quality of education for young women. She promoted the idea that women could and should be teachers of young children, and was instrumental in establishing professional education for careers in teaching. She also advocated for the right of children to be free to just “be children,” which contradicted the commonly held practice of preparing them for adulthood and forcing them into it as soon as possible. Her books helped change the subjects being taught in schools, and many of her books were even used as college textbooks.//

//Links:// [|//http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~dav4is/people/BEEC126.htm//] [|//http://www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/innovators/beecher.html//] [|//http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/2001/beecher/catherine.htm//]