Henry Ward Beecher (24 June 1813-8 March 1887) was the most popular preacher in America during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Known for his outspoken positions on the temperance, abolitionist, and women's rights issues, Beecher was also admired for the more than 100 lyceum lectures which he delivered every year after 1855. Yet the greatest source of his success and popularity was his instrumental role, both as a writer and editor, in the rapidly growing religious periodical press at mid-century. Although his work at times was overshadowed by the fame achieved by his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry was a prolific writer, author of one novel and more than twenty-three volumes of sermons and articles, who was universally recognized as a leading spokesman for popular Protestant middle-class values.

Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the eighth child of Lyman Beecher, a leading revivalist preacher, Henry Ward Beecher had a natural interest in...