In Women's Crusader: Catharine Beecher's Untold Story, R. Lee Wilson sheds light on a heretofore neglected aspect of the life of the prominent women's education advocate—her tragic romance with mathematics prodigy and Yale professor Alexander Metcalf Fisher. Rather than viewing the thirteen month period of their meeting, correspondence, romance, and engagement as a minor event in Beecher's life—cut short by Fisher's death by shipwreck in 1822—Wilson describes it as a period of metamorphosis. He argues that Beecher's relationship with Fisher, as well as her exposure to romance, love, and loss, transformed her into the reformer she would become for the remainder of her life. Examining this pivotal period as a turning point in Beecher's own spiritual, emotional, and philosophical journey allows us to better understand the trajectory of her career.Wilson structures the book in four parts—“Principals,” “Relationship,” “Metamorphosis,” and “Career.” Although also drawing from the Beecher-Stowe family papers and the Alexander Metcalf Fisher papers, Wilson primarily uses Beecher's own poetry, correspondence, and publications to bolster interpretative descriptions of her experiences, relationships, and emotions. The majority of the text focuses on her youth, early adulthood, and relationship with Fisher. As Beecher destroyed the majority of the letters she received from Fisher, Wilson utilizes Fisher's spiritual diary, correspondence with others, and professional papers as well. This approach lends itself to uncertain claims but allows Wilson to flesh out Fisher's perspective. The book includes several photographs, lists of “key characters,” images of manuscript collections, and visual timelines of the Beecher-Fisher romance. It also contains a helpful appendix featuring Beecher's music book and genealogies of both the Beecher and Fisher families.Although written in a narrative style, Wilson defines the book as a “slice of life” biography that builds on previous work by historians Kathryn Kish Sklar and Milton Rugoff. The author seeks to expand knowledge of Beecher's life, accomplishments, and legacy beyond the academic to a popular audience. Wilson rejected a fictional approach in favor of shedding light on the reformer's legacy. He explores Beecher's engagement to Fisher through multiple examples that demonstrate the long standing impact of their relationship. Poetry played a significant part in their romance. Fisher sought an introduction to Beecher after reading one of her poems in the Christian Spectator. As intellectuals, musicians, and Christians struggling to define their faith, they grew close together quickly. She wrote several poems commemorating their relationship, including one upon their parting and another on his memorial stone at Grove Street Cemetery. Beecher carefully preserved their romantic correspondence, and despite omitting him from her memoir, reread and then burned each letter fifty years after his death. Wilson argues through these examples and others that Fisher left an indelible mark on Beecher's life and career.In the final section of the book, Wilson examines the five decades of Beecher's life after Fisher's death. He recounts her role building institutions for women's learning, her innovative approaches to higher education, and her encounters with prominent figures like Angelina Grimké, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Catharine Beecher—often overshadowed by the fame of her more prominent family members including father Rev. Lyman Beecher and siblings Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe—was a poet, educator, and intellectual in her own right. In addition to founding the Hartford Female Seminary in Connecticut and the Western Female Institute in Cincinnati, she emerged as a decisive voice in nineteenth-century debates about abolitionism and women's rights. The book also briefly addresses Beecher's controversial opposition to radical activism. She argued against the efforts of radical abolitionists as counterproductive and cautioned women against supporting reform measures that took them out of the home. Likewise, she wrote essays encouraging women's rights advocates to abandon suffrage, conventions, and lecturing in favor of education and petitioning. This is a fascinating thread of her life that might have been highlighted more thoroughly.Although nonfiction and grounded in historical research, Wilson leans heavily into dramatization and veers uncomfortably close to fictional speculation when it comes to his interpretation of Beecher's emotions, intentions, and inspirations. When describing Beecher's earlier flirtations and courtships, he boldly proclaims, “Kate Beecher could not be pushed into a loveless marriage. She was holding out for a hero” (53). Can Wilson know that Beecher “embraced her pioneering role as an unmarried woman” (183) or “saw herself as a romantic, selfless crusader like Don Quixote, fighting against insurmountable odds for her impossible dream” (197)? Rather than addressing the historical erasure of a progressive feminist activist, the book settles for the more traditional and restrictive aspects of a nineteenth-century woman's life—courtship, romance, and marriage.In doing so, the book locates the origins of Beecher's activism not in her own educational development but through the influence of her fiancé Alexander Metcalf Fisher. Wilson takes Edward Beecher's eulogy of his sister for granted when he proclaimed that “suffering perfected her character into self-sacrifice and devotion to other.” This romanticization replicates long standing tropes about women that divest them of ambition, associate them with caretaking and service, and center their lives around those of men. Arguably, it was Fisher's mother Sally who instructed Beecher in mathematics, physics, and chemistry while they collectively grieved Fisher's death, as well as the sizeable bequest she received from Fisher's estate that shaped the trajectory of her life. The tragic experience may have provided Beecher with purpose, but more important was the financial means to transform her knowledge into action. While her engagement to Fisher and his sudden death clearly had a significant impact her life, does the emphasis on the relationship and Fisher in particular come at the expense of recognizing Beecher's own accomplishments?
Kathryn Angelica (Thu,) studied this question.