Catharine Beecher’s work to improve female education, housekeeping, and women’s status in the home spanned over forty-five years. Although she was a champion of women, she did not support suffrage. Beecher supported the concept of separate spheres for men and women, believing women should be the authority for morality, religion, and the family home.
The title page of one of her many publications – The American Woman’s Home, 1869 – is pictured here. Domestic scenes featuring a mother and children and the ideal home are pictured. In the image at the bottom, the woman in the dark dress is probably a maid even though Beecher advised those following her advice did not need a maid.
Title Page of The American Woman’s Home by Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: J. B. Ford and Company, 1869. (Courtesy of Internet Archive)
Image featured in Investigating Family, Food, and Housing Themes in Social Studies by Cynthia Resor