ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER (1822-1907)

Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Isabella Beecher was the half-sister of Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Isabella’s interest in the legal status of women was first aroused by Blackstone’s position that in marriage, husband and wife are one person before the law and the woman has no separate legal existence.

Associating herself with Susan B. Anthony and other women’s rights advocates, Isabella helped organize the New England Woman Suffrage Association in 1868. She presided over the convention that organized the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association and lobbied the Connecticut legislature in favor of a married woman’s property bill.

Isabella was a prominent speaker at the 1870 convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, D.C. In 1871, she planned and financed a special convention at which a federal constitutional suffrage amendment was drawn up and presented to Congress. For several years she spent much of her time in Washington lobbying and testifying for that amendment. Isabella continued as president of the state suffrage organization until two years before her death.