Election Day Suffrage Centennial Celebration at Cedar Hill Cemetery

Special Events

Election Day Suffrage Centennial Celebration at Cedar Hill Cemetery

November 3, 2020

Join the Stowe Center staff at Isabella Beecher Hooker’s gravesite and place your “I Voted” stickers as a testament to the legacy of Isabella and other suffragists who advocated for voting rights.

An actress playing Isabella will be there in period dress to greet participants and will read from a range of documents to bring Isabella’s words to life.

Isabella Beecher Hooker organized the first suffrage convention in Hartford and co-founded the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association. She was also instrumental in the passage of the Married Women’s Act of 1877 in Connecticut, which supported the rights of married women to control their own property. In this Centennial year of women gaining the right to vote, let’s celebrate!

This is a free and fun event open to all ages. It is outdoors and public health safety guidelines will be followed.

Location Cedar Hill Cemetery / Isabella Beecher Gravesite / 453 Fairfield Ave, Hartford, CT

Doors Open 1 PM

Program 1 - 4:30 pm

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2023

Thank you so much for your interest in a group tour at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center! Please help us schedule your visit by answering the questions below.

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Please suggest three dates and times when your group would like to visit. (Note: the Stowe Center is closed on Sunday and Tuesday.)

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Adult Group Interest Form

Group Tour Interest Form 2022

Thank you so much for your interest in a group tour at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center! Please help us schedule your visit by answering the questions below.

Group Name:

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Are there special accommodations that can help us serve you best?

Are you interested in a joint visit with our neighbor, The Mark Twain House and Museum?

Yes, please.

No, thank you.

If yes, have you already contacted The Mark Twain House?

Yes

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.