Isabella Beecher Hooker:
From the Private to the Public Realm
Sara Kase
Isabella Beecher Hooker lived a life full of contradictions. She sought to excel as a
traditional wife and mother, but also as a women’s suffrage leader; she struggled to fit into the
mold of the ideal wife she believed her husband wanted, while also trying to break out of that
mold in order to make history for women as a whole; she loved and wanted to care for her
children, yet escaped from caring for them when she could and reveled in the freedom that came
with doing so. Yet in spite of, or perhaps because of these internal struggles, Isabella (18221907) arose as a prominent women’s suffrage leader from the 1860’s until her death in 1907.1
Though not as celebrated as her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the famous Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, or suffragists she worked closely with, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Isabella was an important national figure in women’s rights. Her accomplishments include
founding the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association and going on to organize a national
convention where she spoke in front of Congress about the reasons women should have the right
to vote.2 While a small number of historians have briefly explored Isabella’s personal life, they
do not devote enough in-depth discussion to how her experiences connected to her political
work, and most historians focus on one of her more well-known family members altogether.3 A
close study of Isabella’s personal life, based on correspondences with friends and family, reveals
things that cannot be uncovered from studying her more famous counterparts. It illuminates the
reasons and impulses behind her and most likely other suffragists’ work and shows the difficulty
1
"Beecher Family," Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, accessed March 29, 2011, last modified 2011,
http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/hbs/beecher_family.shtml#08.
2
Isabella Beecher Hooker, "The Last of the Beechers: Memories on My Eighty-Third Birthday," May 1905,
Connecticut History on the Web, accessed March
29, 2011, http://connhistory.org/isabella_readings.htm.
3
Jeanne Boydston, Mary Kelley, and Anne Margolis, The Limits of Sisterhood, ed. Linda K. Kerber and Nell Irvin
Painter (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), Milton Rugoff, The Beechers: An American Family
in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), Samuel A. Schreiner Junior, The Passionate
Beechers: A Family Saga of Sanctity and Scandal That Changed America (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2003).
2
that came with balancing personal and political realms. Her writings give an inside look into the
thoughts of a women’s rights leader, a mother, and a wife during the mid to late nineteenth
century and the pressures these roles brought about.
As a child, Isabella was surrounded by people who took action for what they believed in-her father was a nationally known clergyman who preached against slavery and her older
brothers all went on to advocate for abolitionism through sermons and articles--so she gained
from them the determination and the courage to fight for social change.4 Even though most of
her family focused on eradicating slavery, Isabella, even at the young age of sixteen, displayed
her dissatisfaction with the inequality between women and men. She lamented the fact that her
father paid for her brothers’ continued education while she had to stop her formal schooling. A
year later, she did not hold back when she wrote to her fiancé, lawyer John Hooker, revealing to
him her worry that he would not treat her as an equal once they married.5 Despite her concerns,
Isabella became engaged to John at age seventeen, though her interest in women’s rights
continued to increase. In her autobiography, she marked the time that her new husband read
aloud to her from one of his law books a passage which emphasized a husband’s power over his
wife as the beginning of her activism in women’s rights. This beginning occurred when she was
just nineteen years old.6 From the 1840’s on, Isabella exemplified the struggles that many
women of her time went through; she felt imprisoned by her domestic duties and sought a greater
purpose than that of a housekeeper. Perhaps more so than other women, she, whose sisters had
already gained wide recognition--Harriet with her pro-abolitionism book and Catharine with her
4
"Beecher Family," Harriet Beecher Stowe Center,
http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/hbs/beecher_family.shtml#08.
5
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, August 30th, 1839, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford, in Jeanne Boydston, Mary Kelley, and Anne Margolis, The Limits of Sisterhood, ed. Linda K.
Kerber and Nell Irvin Painter (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 89.
6
Hooker, "The Last of the Beechers."
3
campaign for women’s education--wanted to make a change and leave her mark on society as
many of her family members already had. 7 According to Isabella’s autobiographical writing,
“My sister’s book…had such an influence in the abolition cause that it gave me an incentive to
do the best I could to emancipate women.”8 Coincidentally, it was not until the onset of the Civil
War, which led to the emancipation of slaves, that Isabella began publicly working for the
“emancipation of women”. In 1861, the same year that the war began, she met and formed a
strong bond with a young political speaker by the name of Anna Dickinson. Anna inspired
Isabella with her bold public speaking about politics, helped her make important connections
with other suffragists, and made her aware of the work being done for women’s suffrage at the
time by leaders who Isabella would later work alongside, such as Susan B. Anthony.9
Isabella’s desire to live up to her family’s achievements, combined with her displeasure
with her uselessness outside of the home and her knowledge of other women’s similar
frustrations, drove her to strive for women’s suffrage and equality. Perhaps she thought that if
women could vote, they could make a difference in society, and therefore serve a greater
purpose, as she herself hoped to do. Still, a major aspect of Isabella’s life even during her time
as a women’s suffrage leader was her relationship with her husband and children. She bore four
children, two girls and two boys, between the years of 1842 and 1855, although only one of the
boys survived, and she struggled with the frustration and anxiety that stemmed from her
traditional role in the household.10 Also, she was quite dramatic and exaggerated her health
problems. She used them as excuses to avoid facing her domestic responsibilities by escaping to
7
“Beecher Family,” Harriet Beecher Stowe Center.
Hooker, “The Last of the Beechers.”
9
Ibid.
10
The Limits of Sisterhood, 82.
8
4
water cures--resort-like medical facilities--for months at a time. The letters from her four and a
half month long stay at the Gleason Cure in Elmira, New York, when she was thirty-eight, show
her desire to care for her children but also be free from her domestic duties. They also show that
her marriage was one filled with love and bliss, but that she held ambivalent views on a husband
and wife’s roles. Her experience in Elmira shaped her views on gender division and society, and
affected her personal aspirations, leading her to make great strides for women’s rights. In fact,
she did not begin publicly fighting for women’s suffrage until after her stay at the Gleason Cure.
Those who knew her regarded Isabella Beecher Hooker as a wonderful wife and a caring
mother until the day she died, but she wanted to prove, mostly to herself, that she could be more
than just this. Her eldest daughter, Mary, born in 1845, actually stood up for her mother’s strong
familial tendencies when someone wrote to a newspaper questioning them, assuming that
Isabella had neglected her personal life in favor of her political one.11 Mary admiringly described
Isabella as “Beloved and blest at home by husband, children and grandchildren, eminently
qualified for social and domestic life, favored in family connections and comfortable in worldly
goods….”12 However, Isabella’s letters also suggest that she often felt intellectually and socially
confined by her motherly role. In 1847, when she had been married for six years and had two
children, Isabella complained in a letter to her husband that she did not have time to read a book
that she was interested in, saying, “it requires close attention-and this it is almost impossible for
me to give with Mary at my elbow and with my brain half asleep from want of fresh air and
11
Ibid., 83.
"Isabella Beecher Hooker, a Prominent Woman’s Suffragist and Powerful Worker for the Intellectual
Advancement of her Sex," undated copy of an article from Ladie’s Home Journal reprinted in Hartford Evening
Post (Hartford), Isabella Beecher Hooker Newspaper Clippings, Stowe-Day Foundation, Hartford.
12
5
company and exercise.”13 She refused to blame John for any possible shortcomings in her
children’s happiness or success, putting the entire fault on herself as the mother. Even in her
private diary, she wrote,
Self reliance will be the rock on which I may make ship wreck of my children and the danger of this, is strengthened by my husband’s entire confidence in me,
insomuch that he does not in the least assist or advice concerning the children.
The Lord grant in mercy that my failures in duty may not be their ruin - I would
sooner die this day than lead them away from happiness and heaven by wrong
example or neglect.14
She seemed to accept that her husband did not help with the children, and only worried that she
would betray his confidence in her by not being a good enough mother. Isabella felt inadequate
in all respects, complaining to John at one point, “…if you would only teach me how to earn
money - but there’s no use in hoping - I can’t write a book - nor draw pictures - nor do any other
productive work…you overestimated your wife.”15 She desired to do more than sit at home and
take care of the house and family, yet she disparaged herself by pointing out that she had no
talent. Isabella’s disbelief in herself and her abilities also contributed to her wanting to do
something that mattered in the world--changing the government for the better of women.
One could conclude from Isabella’s complaints about her home life that she was a bitter
woman alone in her woes, but there is concrete evidence that other women felt the same way as
she. Take, for example, a letter Mrs. S.H. Graves, a farmwife, wrote to Isabella seeking advice.
While Graves was not a mother, she still felt the seclusion of domestic life, saying that she had
“only the dreary routine of household cares to occupy my mind.” Like Isabella, she wanted to
think about more than cooking and cleaning for her husband--she wanted something to live for.
13
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, February 21st, 1847, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford, in The Limits of Sisterhood, 91.
14
Isabella Beecher Hooker, 1845-1855, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day Foundation, Hartford, in
The Limits of Sisterhood, 93.
15
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, January 24th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
6
When she wrote to Isabella, her amusement consisted of “…mending his [her husband’s] old
pants, or some other equally agreeable occupation” while he went out of the house and enjoyed
himself, because, as she put it, “…everything is his and nothing mine…I am nothing but a
housekeeper without wages, doing all the work of the family.” This woman was on the edge,
feeling trapped, pleading to Isabella, “I must get away from here or go crazy. Perhaps you will
say I am already deranged.” When Isabella felt suppressed and like she could not handle the
pressure, she, being a wealthy woman from a bigger town, could escape to a relaxing water cure,
but for women who were not as privileged or lucky as she, especially those who, like Mrs.
Graves, lived on isolated farms, their only hope was a greater change in society’s expectations.16
Isabella Hooker fought with health issues throughout her life and she used these problems
to excuse what she saw as her intellectual and domestic inadequacies. She escaped her stifling
household role of cleaning the house, cooking the meals, and taking full care of the children, by
going to water cures. These were expensive, lavish getaways that middle and upper class women
often treated as a vacation, where women’s ailments were treated with water.17 Isabella had, or at
least believed she had, a legitimate reason to send herself away to the Gleason Water Cure.
However, she did not hide the fact that she enjoyed being free of responsibility and able to do as
she pleased.
Isabella’s physical health was what initially brought her to the water cure, or at least
served as her excuse to go. She struggled with her menstrual cycles and in the year leading up to
her stay at the Gleason Water Cure, historians think that what she described as “the profuse
menstruation of the last year-which has been fearful” was actually the beginnings of menopause,
16
S.H. Graves Mrs. to Isabella Beecher Hooker, October 24, 1871, Connecticut History on the Web, accessed
March 29, 2011, http://www.connhistory.org/isabella_readings.htm.
17
Rugoff, The Beechers, 421.
7
an ordinary occurrence in an adult woman’s life not fully understood in Isabella’s time.18 Isabella
told John about the actual treatments that Mrs. Gleason gave to help her prolapsed uterus,
explaining, “[I]t is done by instruments…and consists of applications of nitrate of silver - to [the]
mouth [of the uterus] etc-injections into the uterus itself - and various and sundry other things
that you cannot comprehend,” and she went on to describe in detail how her inflamed uterus
appeared. 19 One can never know if Isabella’s ailments and treatments were as severe as she
made them sound, but she clearly believed that she needed to go to the water treatments to
improve her health.
At the same time, Isabella’s feelings about the Gleason Cure far surpassed this belief. She
could not refrain from often admitting that she enjoyed not being tied down by her motherly
duties. At the onset of her stay, Isabella wrote to her family that she planned to do all she did not
have the time and strength for at home; she wanted to learn and grow as a person while away
because for once she was free to do so.20 She wrote to her sister that same week, “It is so
refreshing to me, to drop all care-that I actually feel like leaping + praising God-all the day
long.”21 She seemed taken aback by the amount of freedom she had without having her children
to take care of and contentedly said, “It is a perspective as well as present relief to find that I can
be spared.”22 She was happy to escape her constricting role as wife and mother. Her priorities
come into question when she said to her young daughter,
18
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, June 19th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
19
Ibid.
20
Isabella Beecher Hooker to her family, April 12th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
21
Isabella Beecher Hooker to Catherine E. Beecher, April 17th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, StoweDay Foundation, Hartford.
22
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, May 2nd, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
8
If it were not for the expense of the journey I should beg papa to send you
both…but forty dolls-fare is a good deal to start upon, when we are being
economical- You may tell father, however that I am not trying that practice now- I
mean to spend all I need to have a good time - hire horse + buggy - pictures,
books - or anything else I really very much want.23
One would conclude that Isabella did not want her children to come join her, and that she only
said that to appease them. Hypocritically expressing her disappointment that it was too much
money for her daughters to come to the water cure, while at the same time telling them to notify
their father that she would spend as much money as she pleased on frivolous things, Isabella
seemed to be so caught up in the activity and freedom of the Gleason Cure that she began to
consider her own best interests over her children’s. For the first time in a long time, Isabella felt
like she was pampering herself, as opposed to serving others, and she found no fault in this. Her
statement illustrates the type of atmosphere of the Gleason Cure. There was most certainly a
social aspect to the stay for women, which drew many to the cure time and time again.24
Even with Isabella’s questionable motives, she tried to convince her family that she only
stayed at the water cure out of pure necessity. It was evident in her letters that like most mothers
then and today, there was never a time that Isabella was not thinking and worrying about her
children. She often over-exaggerated her reliance on them, trying to prove that even though she
was at the water cure and not at home with them, they were still her top priority. She told her
youngest daughter Alice, born in 1847, “It is essential to my restoration to health, that my mind
be at ease in regard to my dear ones at home.” In this way, she turned her concern onto herself
and her own health while also showing her earnest concern for her young ones. 25 Overstating her
worry even more, Isabella wrote about her apprehensions for her daughter Mary’s poor health,
23
Isabella Beecher Hooker to one of daughters, April 17th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
24
Rugoff, The Beechers, 421.
25
Isabella Beecher Hooker to Alice Hooker Day, April 16th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
9
alleging, “my soul seems to rest on hers so much that I know not how to sustain myself
alone…to lose her, would be to find myself dismembered.”26 Still, loving her children and
wanting to be responsible for them are two very different things, and some of Isabella’s remarks
make it seem that for her, only the former was true.
However, Isabella continuously stressed that her stay was for the best of the entire family.
When she was at the cure, she told her daughters, “Wouldn’t it be charming to have a sound
Mama - once in your life - uncomplaining + jolly - who knows but this new pleasure may be
added to your already overflowing cup.”27 She tried to show her family that she was only trying
to make the quality of their lives better. Again, she brought up the large amount of money she
was spending, excusing it by telling her husband, “I won’t hate to send for just as much money
as I want - because it is all for your sake that I am trying to get well - yours and the babe’s - so
it’s nothing to me what it costs.”28 Through this remark, she suddenly made her excessive
spending habits noble, since they--the pictures, books, and other things she had listed before-were “necessary” in her gaining health and becoming a better mother. Isabella acted as if the sole
reason she stayed for a prolonged period of time at the cure was so that she could return home
and have the physical and mental ability to care for her family, even though she loved not having
to care for them when she was away.29
For someone who expressed how much she wished she could be home, Isabella often
found ways to stay even longer. In April, the first month Isabella was at the cure, she confided to
her sister, Catharine, “Mrs. Gleason [her doctor] thinks I can be perfectly cured in three months 26
Isabella Beecher Hooker, 1845-1855, Stowe-Day Foundation, Hartford, in The Limits of Sisterhood, 93.
Isabella Beecher Hooker to one of daughters (not Alice), April 17, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection,
Stowe-Day Foundation, Hartford.
28
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, April 28, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
29
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, June 19th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford, in The Limits of Sisterhood, 102.
27
10
of derangements which would not be overcome under six months with most people,” adding that
aside from her husband, “no one knows this at home….They would all be discouraged to have to
look so far ahead - for my return.”30 However, two months later, Isabella was still not close to
returning home. On June 19th, she included in a letter to her husband many references to why she
absolutely needed to stay much longer. Discussing her son Eddie’s poor health, she seemingly
nobly, but actually selfishly, said, “although, I should delight to have the care of him, I know it is
just what I ought not to have - just what would probably undo, all that has been so well done for
me.”31 In this instance, she put her own health before her child’s. Then, implying that she wanted
to go home very badly, Isabella told John,
…no amount of homesickness, would induce me to leave here - so long as Mrs.
Gleason thinks I need the least bit more of treatment - I have such a dread of
being a worse invalid than ever - of being useless or bed ridden - a trial to my
husband and children…that I would rather stay away a year, than run the risk of it
even.32
In this comment, Isabella displayed her always-underlying fear of failing as a mother and wife.
Usually when Isabella brought up staying at the Gleason Cure, she used Mrs. Gleason’s name,
transferring any blame she may have received onto her doctor. Yet, Isabella proved as a
women’s suffrage leader and even growing up, yearning for more education, that she was an
independent thinker who would not be easily swayed by someone else. She would not just stay at
the cure because Mrs. Gleason told her she should. If she had really wanted to go home, she
would have done everything in her power to do so.
One of the reasons that Isabella perhaps wanted to stay at the Gleason Cure so badly was
she realized that without the burden of domestic duties, her mind never rested. She welcomed
30
Isabella Beecher Hooker to Catherine E. Beecher, April 17, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, StoweDay Foundation, Hartford.
31
Isabella Hooker to John Hooker, June 19th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day Foundation,
Hartford, in The Limits of Sisterhood, 102
32
Ibid.
11
this new intellectual stimulation. About a month into her stay, Isabella wrote to her husband, “I
can’t stop thinking somehow …it does not wear upon me as much, as at home - but there are
fewer diversions.”33 She conveyed to John that without her regular responsibilities, she had the
mental strength and capacity to think about more important issues than which child to bathe first,
for example. She told him, “I seem to think with a clearness - a precision that is perfectly
charming to me.”34 Isabella favored this new mental activity as a better, more motivating
alternative to the same mundane, household tasks that she did every day and that required no
intellect. To her, thinking most likely meant focusing on issues beyond these tasks. It probably
meant pondering over important issues that her community and country faced, reflecting over her
life and how she lived it, and figuring out how she wanted to move forward as a women’s rights
leader as well as a mother. In May at the Gleason Cure, Isabella showed her view on society and
the role intelligence played in it, voicing her opinion that “that will be a perfect state of society when goodness of intelligence occupy the high places - while goodness united with some
intellectual feebleness sits contentedly in the lower seats.”35 In her eyes, if one’s place in society
were judged solely on the level of goodness and intelligence, women would be a plentiful part of
public life.
Isabella expressed conflicting views regarding the roles of a husband and a wife. Her
time away from John gave her a chance to reflect on their relationship and how she felt. Through
her time at the Gleason Cure, she was able to eventually come to conclusions about men and
women’s individual strengths that helped bolster her argument for women’s voting rights.
33
Isabella Hooker to John Hooker, May 2nd, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day Foundation,
Hartford.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
12
She and her husband, John, had a happy marriage, expressing their love for each other
often and supporting each other in all of their individual and joint political endeavors. While one
might presume Isabella a raging feminist, she seemed to still hold the widespread notion of her
time period that men were better than women, at least in some aspects. She wrote to John around
the middle of her stay at the Gleason Water Cure, earnestly letting him know, “I think this
separation has done me good on the whole-by deepening my impressions of your superiorities…I
see now that I have failed in reverence for and towards you - and in inculcating this upon the
children.”36 At first glance, her words seem to contrast her stance on women’s rights, but in
inspecting Isabella’s careful word choice, it is evident that she still regarded her husband as her
equal rather than her superior. The superiorities she spoke of most likely refer to her thought of a
man’s physical advantage over women. She even understood woman’s reason for letting men
dominate for so long, woman’s desire for protection due to “the disabilities she was under, by
reason of the pains and cares incident to her motherhood.”37 She felt that she should show
“reverence”, not idolization or submission, to the man who had done so much for her family,
assuming the dominant role because she, as a mother, was physically unable to do so.38 Isabella
seemed to come to a realization of sorts when she was at the cure, which helped her to further
embrace women’s apparent feebleness:
Now - it seems to me, that nothing very exquisite - can be very strong - that, that
word implies a physical, material quality which is inconsistent with this species of
mental beauty - and one must be contented to be beautiful in whatsoever God has
laid out for him.39
36
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, July 15th/16th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford, in The Limits of Sisterhood, 107.
37
Hooker, “A Mother’s Letters,” 9.
38
Ibid.
39
Isabella Hooker to John Hooker, July 15th/16th, 1860, The Limits of Sisterhood, 107.
13
She did not assert a woman’s false physical strength, truly believing that just because men and
women should be treated equally, they did not have the same strengths. Even before she came to
this conclusion, Isabella had recognized that her weakness did not hurt her because of the
lifestyle she led. With the lifestyle of a mother who for the most part stayed home all day every
day, she confided in her diary, “the loss [of health and strength early in life] may have been a
blessing - I cannot perceive its use here nor do the benefits seem to me equal to this loss.”40
Isabella did project her belief in a woman’s moral superiority over men and the mental
advantages motherhood gives a woman. In 1868, Isabella composed “A Mother’s Letters to a
Daughter on Woman’s Suffrage”, which was published anonymously in a magazine called
Putnam Monthly.41 In it, she declared that womanhood--and motherhood--was “a greater
protection against insult and contamination than all the shields that man can devise.”42 This
claim illustrated her belief that even though men may have had the physical advantage, women
had an innate nurturing, mothering trait that provided them with great inner strength. Even in
writing to her husband, she suggested that she possessed a clearer, more grounded moral center
than him, due to her womanhood. She often suggested that he would rather be free from work
and care, presuming, “you are rich perhaps + can afford to.”43 In contrast, she preferred to
emphasize that she herself, as the mother figure, would always seek to help others and care for
her children, even with the conflicts that arose from such a stressful job.44 When Isabella had
been months away at the water cure, she started a sentence to her husband, “Much as I want to
see my dear children and take my share of all the home cares - and comfort you in your
40
Isabella Beecher Hooker, 1845-1855 Journal, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day Foundation,
Hartford, in The Limits of Sisterhood, 93.
41
Hooker, “The Last of the Beechers”.
42
Hooker, “A Mother’s Letters,” 7.
43
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, May 2, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
44
Ibid.
14
feebleness and sustain you, under your pressure of business and care and responsibility….”45 By
doing so, she pointed out that the duty of caring for the children was a hard job for her husband
to take on on top of his manly responsibilities, probably because she believed he did not have the
inherent mothering ability that she had.46 Isabella used these ideas she had as an argument for
allowing women’s suffrage. In a newspaper article she remarked, “questions of legislation today
are largely questions of morals, and men alone are incompetent to deal with the morals of a
community.”47 In a way, she put herself and all women on a pedestal, preferring to often remind
her husband and later politicians and citizens that she, along with all women, had this
unbreakable moral superiority to men.
Before the Gleason Cure, Isabella felt that her marriage, relationship and life were
perfectly adequate, telling her husband, “I have such a satisfied feeling, when thinking of
ourselves - as if, we were just about right + no fault could be found…we see through a glass
darkly - + yet I am in no haste to change the mirror.”48 This statement is of great importance
because prior to her long stay at the Gleason Cure, Isabella acknowledged that she and her
husband felt content because they were used to living with a shaded view in regards to man’s
dominance in society. They did not see the world clearly, but she knew that trying to clean the
mirror, to uncover the ways life could be more fair and the genders could be more equal, would
be much more difficult than living in blissful ignorance. After the cure, however, she understood
what she wanted to accomplish and what was wrong with the gender discrimination in her
society. After forming connections and actually having time to think at the water cure, Isabella
45
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, June 19th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford, in The Limits of Sisterhood, 102.
46
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, April 28th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
47
"Leader among Women," Saratoga Union, August 21, 1890.
48
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, January 22, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
15
was ready to fight for women’s rights, to try to “clean the glass.” She was ready for everyone to
see how society should behave, to see women vote and take part in public affairs. She knew it
would be hard, but she was ready to face the challenge.
In fact, when Isabella wrote “A Mother’s Letters to a Daughter on Woman’s Suffrage” at
age forty-eight, she focused a great deal on a man’s versus a woman’s role, taking from all she
had experienced through the years and explaining why women would be such crucial voters. She
hoped to bring to light how overlooked a mother’s job was, claiming, “In this country, certainly,
the manners, the habits, the laws of the household, are determined in great part by the mother.”
She thought that a woman, having always governed her children and led a household, could
easily manage public affairs in the same manner. She believed that a woman’s son “gathered all
he knew of laws, country, home, heaven, and earth, at her [a mother’s] knee,” yet claimed his
mother incompetent to participate in voting and government once he became a man, giving
nothing back to the woman who taught him everything. Isabella thought that the reason women
did not participate in government was twofold: men were accustomed to playing the role of the
gallant hero and did not think women could handle such a responsibility, and women let
themselves become dependent on their husbands without fighting for their rights. She believed
that women needed to try to make something of themselves and increase their participation in
public affairs. Most importantly, she thought that women needed to believe in their own abilities
and rights, as she had not believed in her own in the past, in order for men to believe that their
wives were capable of public responsibility.49
49
Hooker, “A Mother’s Letters,” 3, 4, 9, 25.
16
Isabella also gained understandings of her own abilities of persuasion and what it took to
obtain recognition through her time spent at the Gleason Cure. After using her name to gain
connections, Isabella realized in June of 1860, a couple months into her time there, that “every
where I go - I have to run on the credit of my relations - no where, but at home - can I lay claim
to a particle of individuality - to any distinction of goodness, smartness or any thing else
whatever.”50 She felt that she was not judged by what she had to say or offer, but merely by who
her parents and siblings were and what they had accomplished. Yet, presumably after Isabella
said this, she told her husband, “family name goes a great way no doubt, but there is a
magnetism of heart and eye and voice that is quite individual - oh how I wish I might exert this
on a broad scale, to sweep people along on the right path.”51 Even further into her stay, Isabella’s
self-confidence must have risen, as she realized that her success came from something more than
her family’s name. It came from some individual quality that she alone held, and she felt it to be
her duty to share it.
Until the day she died, Isabella fought for women’s suffrage, greatly advancing the
women’s movement but failing to see women gain voting rights.52 Both Isabella’s experiences in
domestic life and at the Gleason Water Cure helped to shape her beliefs and drive her to fight for
suffrage. Feeling the frustration and isolation that other women had felt for years, she chose not
to wait for someone else to make a change, but instead to plunge into the women’s rights battle
headfirst. Her struggle to succeed in her personal life as the traditional housewife conflicted with
her desire to become more than that and succeed in her political life, and she had to learn how to
50
Isabella Beecher Hooker to John Hooker, June 24th, 1860, Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection, Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford, in The Limits of Sisterhood, 105.
51
Rugoff, The Beechers, 421.
52
"Beecher Family," Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, accessed March 29, 2011, last modified 2011,
http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/hbs/ beecher_family.shtml#08.
17
balance and excel in these two realms. At the Gleason Cure, Isabella could socialize with other
women, make connections with others who wanted to make a difference, and be influenced by
Mrs. Gleason and the other women doctors who had found professional success in a man’s
world.53 Being away from her family, Isabella was able to unlock her own intellectualism and
new ideas, and believed that if women did not have to suppress their beliefs, they could
contribute greatly to society as well. She loved her family, but taking care of them was not
fulfilling enough for her. She, like many other women at the time, desired to have a greater
purpose. Isabella fought for women’s suffrage, but she really fought for much more than that.
Women’s voting rights symbolized a new presence of women in public affairs, and a society that
allowed women’s voices to be heard and showed them that they mattered on a larger scale.
53
The Passionate Beechers, 195-196.
18
Bibliography
“Beecher Family.” Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. Accessed March 29, 2011. Last modified
2011. http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/hbs/beecher_family.shtml#08.
Boydston, Jeanne, Mary Kelley, and Anne Margolis. The Limits of Sisterhood. Edited by Linda
K. Kerber and Nell Irvin Painter. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
Graves, S.H., Mrs. S.H. Graves Mrs. to Isabella Beecher Hooker, October 24, 1871 Connecticut
History on the Web. Accessed March 29, 2011. http://www.connhistory.org/
isabella_readings.htm.
Hartford Evening Post (Hartford). “Isabella Beecher Hooker, a Prominent Woman’s Suffragist
and Powerful Worker for the Intellectual Advancement of her Sex.” January-February 18,
1890.
Hooker, Isabella Beecher. “Confession of Faith.” April 14, 1885. Stowe-Day Foundation,
Hartford.
———. “The Last of the Beechers: Memories on My Eighty-Third Birthday.” May 1905.
Connecticut History on the Web. Accessed March 29, 2011. http://connhistory.org/
isabella_readings.htm.
———. Isabella Beecher Hooker Collection. Stowe-Day Foundation, Hartford.
———. “A Mother’s Letters to a Daughter on Women’s Suffrage.” 1871. Stowe-Day
Foundation, Hartford.
Rugoff, Milton. The Beechers: An American Family in the Nineteenth Century. New York:
Harper & Row, 1981.
Saratoga Union. “Leader among Women.” August 21, 1890.
Schreiner, Samuel A., Junior. The Passionate Beechers: A Family Saga of Sanctity and Scandal
That Changed America. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.
19