Upon first glance, the title, The Beechers: America’s Most Influential Family, makes a bold claim that may draw both reflection and an initial skepticism from readers. Surely, across the 250 years of United States history, some political or business family dynasty had to have had a more significant national impact than the Beechers. Yet, within his book, Obbie Tyler Todd makes clear that the Beechers do indeed stand apart for the sheer number of family members active at one time, all working toward similar common causes across several divergent fields.
The family patriarch, Lyman Beecher, was one of the leading voices of the Second Great Awakening, holding massive sway among the large numbers of evangelical protestants at the time, but drawing the ire of nearly everyone else outside of that circle. As president of Cincinnati’s Lane Theological Seminary, he initially dragged his feet on the slavery question in 1834. His noncommittal stance caused the overwhelming majority of the student body to leave the school in protest following a series of debates on abolitionism. Careful not to make the same mistake again, he transitioned fully to the abolitionist cause.
Lyman Beecher impressed upon his eleven children that strong families are the building blocks of a strong nation. He traveled the country, children in tow, seeking to improve the American character through religious means. Six of his seven sons graduated from seminary, and they and his other children sought national improvement through literary, educational, and political pursuits. The Beechers stood not only for their commitment to abolition but also for temperance and the better treatment of Native Americans and freedmen.
Todd tactfully sidelines Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, giving the novel and its author proper attention but focusing more on the accomplishments of her siblings. For example, sister Isabella Beecher devoted her life to women’s suffrage, and Catharine Beecher pioneered the principles of home economics. In the case of her brother Henry Beecher, his beliefs did not mandate that he turn the other cheek. He raised funds within his large Brooklyn congregation to purchase Sharps rifles and boxes of these “Beecher Bibles” were sent to Free-Soil settlers of Kansas.
With tendrils across elements of societal improvement, the Beechers involved themselves in national issues from the 1830s to the 1880s. When Lyman the patriarch passed, progeny pulled away from each other, many interpreting and applying “Beecherism” to social and theological issues differently than their fellow siblings. With some lecturing and publishing on science and pseudoscience, the family was host to a spectrum of opinions and interests but remained constant influential figures in the American conversation.
Although several Beechers are the subject of individual biographies and some historians have published short overviews of the family, this is the first full-length examination of the Beecher clan. Although Todd, a Baptist pastor and adjunct professor of church history comes from a different background than most historians writing for an academic audience, his meticulous research in this work is attested to by its hefty notes section, consisting of both previously published and unpublished material.
The narrative is primarily chronological, bouncing between the different Beecher children. Naturally, their shared last name may prompt the reader to occasionally backtrack and check exactly which Beecher is being described. Those accustomed to thinking “one more chapter” may find each section’s continuance eating up more time than they expect.
The 277 pages of content are divided into an introduction and seven chapters, several stretching to around forty pages in length. Subheaders provide breaks in the action, but it seems the text would have benefited from more segmentation. However, its length is not overbearing or unjustified; if anything, Todd could have lent more detail in almost every section.
The Beechers: America’s Most Influential Family is a soundly-argued, well-researched, and holistic biography that merits a place on the bookshelf of any student interested in nineteenth-century social history.
Reviewed by Aaron Stoyack
–emergingcivilwar.com
