Catharine Beecher

Catharine Beecher (1800-1878) was an American educator and author who argued that women were the natural teachers and moral guides of the young and so required a thorough education. Born on Long Island, she opened the Hartford Female Seminary in 1823, combining algebra, chemistry, history, Latin, philosophy and rhetoric with moral and religious formation. In 1831 she moved to Cincinnati and founded the Western Female Institute, hoping it would model a national system of teacher training, and in 1835 published an essay on educating female teachers. Her Treatise on Domestic Economy of 1841 was a best seller. In 1852 she founded a women's education association to raise funds for schools, and she died in Elmira, New York, in 1878.