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Author Bibliography (in progress)

Beecher, Catharine Esther (1800-1878)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Catherine_Beecher.jpgCatharine Esther Beecher (6 September 1800 - 12 May 1878) was a daughter of the prominent New England minister Lyman Beecher, a sister of the Abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, and sister to Harriet Beecher Stowe with whom she was an occasional co-author. Both Harriet and Catharine are great-aunts of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. During her lifetime Beecher was best known as a teacher and promoter of access to education for women, though her reformist ideas were conservative. Underlying her writing is Beecher's interpretation of the Bible as an injunction to women to be submissive to their husbands, while husbands should treat their wives as “the weaker vessel” and protect them and give them precedence. In this way, according to Beecher, a power balance between the genders is achieved. This belief in modesty and virtue, and submission to the trials of God, guides all of her texts: she argues against suffrage and women’s rights as unchristian and disruptive to the balance of family and society. Regarding Abolition, she advocates "gradual emancipation," arguing that to make the case for the abolition of slavery through direct action will not work, that the case should be made by educating former slaves and impressing society with their meekness and humility. Thus, slave owners will become aware of the immorality of their actions of their own accord.

The progressive reform issue to which she devoted her life's work is the provision of education to all women and children. Beecher's vision of feminine education is a program adapted to women’s specific roles in life or “spheres”: housekeeping and child-rearing. It is as mothers and teachers that women can most effectively influence society. It is in this context that she promotes a restricted veg*nism, arguing that in respect of health meat is "over stimulating" and vegetables, together with Graham bread, are to be preferred. Adults should limit their consumption of meat, children should eat very little, and infants should eat none at all. While she does not advocate abstinence from meat, Beecher's attention to this issue offers useful evidence of the pervasive discourse of veg*nism in reform circles at this time.
IMAGE: Catherine Beecher, ca. 1858-1862, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

PUBLICATIONS

Treatise on Domestic Economy, for the Use of Young Ladies at Home, and at School. 1842.
 
Woman’s Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage. New York: Maclean, Gibson & Co., 1872.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56090/56090-h/56090-h.htm
 
Catharine Esther Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. 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. New York: J. B. Ford & Co., 1869.

 

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