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Catherine Beecher: Promoter of Physical Education for Women 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