Physical education during the nineteenth century was geared toward male private schools. However, there were certain educators who wanted to see a rise in female participation in physical education. One of the main leaders of this movement was Catherine Beecher, who was an educator as well as an activist for women’s rights. She promoted the idea of physical health as a subject appropriate for schools. Beecher not only supported the idea of physical education, she also developed her own system of calisthenics for girls.

Catherine Beecher was born into a prominent family at a time when even wealthy women received minimal formal education. Born on September 6, 1800, she was the oldest daughter of 13 children (Goodsell, 1931). From a family of crusaders (her sister was abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe), Beecher took up the cause of educational reform and the promotion of women as teachers. Catherine’s father, Rev. Lyman Beecher, was, according to Catherine, a warm, imaginative, and nurturing father who was passionately fond of his children, whom he loved to take care of. Catherine’s mother was practical, self-controlled, and intelligent (Goodsell

In the 1930s, Beecher moved to the Midwest with her father and began her campaign for more schools for women. She founded the Western Female Institute in Cincinnati, which prospered until the financial crash of 1837, which caused the end to the institute. However, Beecher still introduced and developed further the calisthenic exercises she had originated in her Hartford school. Her system took several more decades to finally be accepted as appropriate for women because even its light activity was thought to conflict with the ideas about femininity widely held in those days. “When physical education takes proper place in our schools, young girls will be trained in the classrooms to move head, hands and arms gracefully; to sit, to stand, and to walk properly, and to pursue calisthenic exercises for physical development as a regular school duty as much as their studies” (Beecher, 1874, p. 85-86). Beecher’s writings on calisthenics such as A Course in Calisthenics for Young Ladies (1831), as well as the exercises she developed, were extensively used in the East and the West (Goodsell, 1931).

Catherine Beecher has been recognized as one of the early promoters of higher education for women. She was a pioneer of physical education as part of the public schools curriculum, for both girls and boys. Most schools of the nineteenth and early 20th century never addressed the issue of health or exerci

Some topics in this essay:
Menchikoff Estes, Catherine Beecher, Lyman Beecher, Institute Cincinnati, Female Seminary, Greek Latin, Educational Association, Women Physical, Born September, Stowe Beecher, physical education, catherine beecher, education women, system calisthenics, 1931 catherine, goodsell 1931, goodspell 1931, menchikoff estes 2002, “catherine beecher”, siedentop 2001, 1931 catherine beecher, calisthenic exercises, “catherine beecher” 2001, goodspell 1931 catherine, system calisthenics girls,