The National Votes for Women Trail: Hooker House Historic Marker Dedication

Special Events

National Votes for Women Trail

Hooker House Historic Marker Dedication

August 4, 2022

Come celebrate the many contributions of Isabella Beecher Hooker and her husband, John, to the advancement of woman suffrage, as their historic home at 140 Hawthorn Street receives its marker on The National Votes for Women Trail. The 45-minute community program will include a brief biographical summary by Susan Campbell and speeches by elected officials. To continue the legacy of the Hookers’ voting rights advocacy, representatives from the Hartford Votes Coalition, HartfordNext, Everyday Democracy, and others will be on hand to share voting access information.

True partners in the movement, Isabella and John for decades advocated women’s right to vote, in addition to legislation that codified property rights for married women in Connecticut. Each authored numerous essays and letters to the editor in support of greater civic autonomy for women, both locally and nationally, and encouraged broad dialogue among suffragists, rather than the more restricted, “respectable” discourse championed by some in the movement.

The dedication of Isabella and John’s marker will take place at their Hawthorn Street home, just around the corner from the Stowe Center. A more in-depth discussion of their suffragist work, featuring Susan Campbell, author of Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker, will begin at noon at the Stowe Center.

A project of The National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites, The National Votes for Women Trail denotes sites from all over the country that allow us to tell the untold story of suffrage for all women, of all ethnicities, that extends well past the passage of the 19th amendment. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation is complementing these efforts with the donation of 250 historic roadside markers nationally.

The dedication of the marker is free and open to the public. Participants planning to attend Susan Campbell’s noon presentation at the Stowe Center should register here.

NCWHS Logo

Connecticut's Old State House Logo

Location 140 Hawthorn St./ Hartford, CT 06105

Doors Open 10:00 am

Program 10:00-10:45 am

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2024

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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.

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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.