40 Famous Iowans - Catherine Beecher

Catherine Beecher was a 19^th century author and educator born in Long Island, New York.  Beecher came from a very established family.  They both touted the strong values of women that Beecher herself would come to believe in when she was an adult.  She really pushed for women’s work in the home and strongly believed that women were to be moral role models for the young.  One of her books, "Treatise on Domestic Economy” was a best seller when it came out in 1841.  Its main purpose was to provide practical household advice that also symbolized the domestic virtues of life. 

Unlike many others of her time, Beecher was not looking for a radical change in women’s rights.  She fought for increased recognition, for all to see the true importance of the work women did do.  She founded several schools that were devoted to training women to become teachers.  Beecher also believed that women who were teaching others to live moral lives were the basis of a moral society.  So while her beliefs were not radical, they still helped prove that women were no weaker than men.  Catherine Beecher is a prime example of a woman who wanted change, but did not need to be overly aggressive to get it.

40 Famous Iowans - Modern Ioway Tribe

Today much of the Ioway Native American tribes are not in Iowa, as much as they are around it. The main locations of the tribes are in Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. They are located along the Missouri River on a reservation that is approximately 2,100 acres. In Kansas, as of 1995, the population was 2,147. The tribe in Kansas and Nebraska is chartered under the Reorganization Act of 1934. Their first constitution was adopted on November 6, 1978. The body of tribes today that govern the Ioway is called the Executive Committee. All members within this committee hold 3-year terms, and then elections are undergone.

The tribe’s economy is mostly run by agriculture, cattle, grain processing and Tribal Bingo which later turned into a casino. The modern tribes do all that is possible to follow the lifestyles and customs of their ancestors. At Living History Farms, staff have worked closely with members of the Ioway tribe to create the 1700 Ioway Indian Farm. Visitors can experience how authentic crops were grown, where the tribe members would have lived, and typical “chores” an Ioway farmer would have done.

40 Famous Iowans - Sarah Huftalen

Born in Manchester, Iowa in 1865, Sarah Huftalen was born as a typical farm girl. Yet, the life she led would be called anything but typical for a Midwestern woman of her time. When she grew older she became a very accomplished school and college teacher. She married a man much older than herself and went on to care greatly for both her family and her life’s work.

What she is known best for however is her writing. Also, she wrote many essays, teacher’s guides and poetry. In total, she wrote over 3,500 pages about her life as a daughter, sister, mother, historian and public figure. She goes into great detail about her feelings, life through each of the stages and how her roles had intertwined, as well as he effects each role she lived had on her. In short, the diaries were an autobiography about her life in Iowa and show us the differences between women then and what struggles and triumphs they made it through during their lives.

40 Famous Iowans - George Schafer

The Schafer Drug Store, which can now be found at Living History Farms, is named after George Schafer. Schafer was the Iowa Pharmacy Association’s first President. The store was named after him in honor of all the service he provided to the IPA in the late 1800s. Also, Schafer played a key role in creating the Iowa Board of Pharmacy, which created the first real regulation of pharmacy practice in the state. Today his drug store at Living History Farms is a part of the living museum based on the pharmacy practices in 1875. It does a fascinating job at showing some of the evolution behind a pharmacy as time went on. Schafer’s drug store will show visitors for a long time to come what a pharmacist’s job was like in the late 1800s.

These early drugstores were very important to smaller towns for medicines, household chemicals and much more. Druggists during this time were depended on for their abilities to compound medicines for their patients. Several times patients would actually skip visiting their doctor and go straight to the town’s pharmacist. They not only prescribed the medicines, they created them appropriately in mass. An interesting fact about pharmacists (druggists) during this time was that they were less concerned about patenting their medicines and more into patenting what was holding it. Several bottles designs were patented so other druggists’ could not copy them.

40 Famous Iowans - Fannie Farmer

Fannie Farmer was a famous culinary expert from the mid 1800s through the early 1900s. Her cookbook entitled Boston Cooking-School Cookbook became very popular and widely used at the time. In this cookbook Farmer introduced readers to standardized measuring utensils such as measured spoons and cups. Although Fannie’s family was very devoted to getting education, her hopes of going to college were crushed when at age 16 she suffered a paralytic stroke. For the next several years she did not attend schooling and was dependant on her parents to care for her. It was during this time that she found her love for cooking.

Eventually Farmer turned her mother’s house into a boarding house that soon earned a reputation for the great meals it served. It wasn’t until age 30 that Farmer was able to attend school again, and she attended Boston Cooking School. Up until 1889, she learned about all aspects to cooking and soon mastered the art. After graduating, she took a spot on the school board up until 1902. Later in her life she again lost the ability to walk. In these later years of her life Farmer lectured, wrote and created recipes for everyone to enjoy. To this day, Fannie Farmer is known for her organization and good food. In 1915, Farmer died at age 57 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.