White, the Beecher Sisters

Birden, Susan, Vitae Scholasticae

Barbara A. White. The Beecher Sisters. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-300-09927-4.399 pages.

While a title like The Beecher Sisters may sound like just another dry academic biography, nothing could be further from the case in Barbara A. White's depiction of the large and famous family of Puritan minister Lyman Beecher. The book is meticulously researched and eminently scholarly, but the story of these larger-than-life characters is so skillfully and engagingly rendered that it reads like a novel. Admittedly, White received a great deal of help from the Beechers themselves. Not only were they one of the United States' most influential families of the nineteenth century, but Lyman Beecher and most of his four daughters and seven sons were embroiled in many of the public controversies that rocked the nation. In forums, books, and newspapers they wrangled over doctrine, abolitionism, women's rights, and immigration, contending with religious leaders, statesmen, the literati, and frequently, one another. In private, and sometimes in …

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Publication information: Article title: White, the Beecher Sisters. Contributors: Birden, Susan - Author. Journal title: Vitae Scholasticae. Volume: 27. Issue: 2 Publication date: Fall 2010. Page number: 164+. © 2006 Caddo Gap Press. COPYRIGHT 2010 Gale Group.

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