The Beechers

Obbie Tyler Todd is pastor of Third Baptist Church in Marion, Illinois, and adjunct professor of church history at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of Let Men Be Free: Baptist Politics in the Early United States, 1776-1835.

In a lively and clear narrative, Todd keeps the lives, loves, and projects of moral improvement undertaken by the eleven children of Lyman Beecher interwoven in a chronological history of the Beecher family. A more rounded and intimate picture of Lyman Beecher than we have had, and a great window into the social and religious ferment of the nineteenth century."" - Joan D. Hedrick, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life ""The Beecher family had it all, and it's all in Obbie Tyler Todd's wide-ranging book. Piety. Erudition. Eloquence. Activism. Scandal. The Beechers is a thoughtful and entertaining history. Highly recommended."" - John G. Turner, author of They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty ""The Beecher family was amazing. Their story offers a window through which to view some of the most influential and often contested outlooks in the era spanning the American Civil War."" - George M. Marsden, author of Jonathan Edwards: A Life ""This is the best book on Lyman Beecher's legacies, the nineteenth-century Beecher family, and 'Beecherism' on offer."" - Douglas A. Sweeney, author of Edwards the Exegete: Biblical Interpretation and Anglo-Protestant Culture on the Edge of the Enlightenment