Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker

Author Talk

Biographer Susan Campbell discusses Isabella Beecher Hooker

March 5, 2020

Join the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center as we welcome author, journalist, and professor, Susan Campbell, who will discuss her book Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker, a biography of Isabella Beecher Hooker.

Isabella, modern for her time, was a leader in the suffrage movement and a palpable presence in Hartford’s Nook Farm neighborhood. She’s been described as “off-putting, perplexing, tenacious, charming” with a wild streak many 19^th-century Hartfordites found curious.

Learn more about Harriet’s younger half-sister as Campbell brings her own unique blend of empathy and humor to the story of Isabella Beecher Hooker.

Susan Campbell is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a widely read Hartford Courant columnist, and the author of three book. She’s worked across the media landscape as an award-winning print journalist, a regular commentator on WNPR, and a guest on CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” the BBC, WTNH-TV, and the local news show “Face the State.” She is also part of the Connecticut Health Investigative Team, an award-winning health and safety website.

Her work at The Courant – where she was a staff writer and columnist for 25 years and is currently a freelance columnist – has been recognized by the National Women’s Political Caucus, the New England Associated Press News Executives, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and the Society for Professional Journalists, among numerous other organizations. She’s also written for Connecticut Magazine, Salon.com, the Ms. Foundation blog, and Patheos.com.

Location Harriet Beecher Stowe Center / Visitor Center / 77 Forest Street Hartford CT

Doors Open 5:30 pm

Program 5:30 - 7:00 pm

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Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.