Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Beecher Hooker (1822-1907), was a family friend of the Langdon's since Olivia's girlhood as well as Mrs. Langdon's confident. In 1860, Isabella at a much older thirty-eight years old, became Olivia's, a much younger fourteen years old, roommate at the Gleason's Water Cure - a hydropathic resort. Trombley describes her importance in the woman's rights movement:

"A pivotal figure in the women's rights movement, publishing polemic tracts and a book entitles Womanhood: Its Sanctities and Fidelities (1873). She also sponsored and organized Hartford's first woman's suffrage convention in 1869, and encouraged her husband to write a bill, eventually passed in the Connecticut State Legislature, that granted tax paying women their voting rights."(Trombley 137)

Trombley also explains that "The two forceful personalities of Isabella Hooker and Clemens obviously made for an explosive duo"(139) but that "Despite difficulties in Clemens's and Isabella's relationship, the Clemenss always remained supportive of Isabella's activities"(139), even financing one of her suffragist conferences. In his autobiography, Clemens paid tribute to her, writing "These brave women besieged the legislatures of the land...[and] achieved a revolution...They broke the chains of their sex and set it free"(141).

Back to Olivia

 

Home