52 Beecher family European artistic forms Baroque music was generally more lively and less technically complex in a Latin American context than it was in Europe European innovations in the visual arts were selectively appropriated and transformed to suit a very different context The result was a hybridization of European, Indian, and African cultural influences Many baroque churches in Latin America, for example, include detailed carvings and other ornamentation that incorporate elements of indigenous spiritual beliefs and practices Similarly, paintings and sculptures from the baroque era often portray their subjects clad in the native garments or situated in surroundings suggestive of the local climate and geography The biblical scenes found in the interior of the San Francisco Church in Santa Fé de Bogotá, Colombia, for example, depict biblical figures in a rich tropical environment Some of the finest examples of Latin American baroque art and architecture can be seen in the work of Antônio Francisco Lisboa, known more popularly as O Aleijadinho (the “Little Cripple”) This Brazilian sculptor and architect’s masterpieces include baroque churches in São João del Rei and Ouro Preto, as well as the statuary (most famously the Twelve Prophets carved out of soapstone) at the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus Matozinho in Congonhas Campo Aleijadinho’s work, some of which he produced in the early years of the 19th century, serves as a reminder of the inapplicability of rigid periodization of artistic styles in the Latin American context The decades following independence witnessed a backlash against baroque culture among educated elites in Latin America The movement for political independence had been inspired in large part by European Enlightenment ideals, and it was to European—and particularly to French neoclassicist—ideals that the Creole elites turned for a cultural model on which to base their newly independent societies On a more popular level, however, devotional art and pageantry and other expressions of popular culture continued to demonstrate a taste for theatricality and ornamentation characteristic of baroque culture well into the 19th century and beyond In fact, the enduring presence of baroque aesthetic norms can still be observed in Latin American cultural expression Further reading: Baily, Gauvin Alexander Art of Colonial Latin America London: Phaedon Press, 2005; King, John, ed The Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American Culture Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Tarragó, Rafael E The Pageant of Ibero-American Civilization: An Introduction to Its Cultural History Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995; Tenenbaum, Barbara, ed Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1996 Kathleen Ruppert Beecher family U.S ministers and reformers Bestriding the 19th century, members of the large and well-educated New England–based family headed by patriarch Lyman Beecher would play crucial roles in the development of American Protestant theology, women’s education, and the abolition of slavery Daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery best seller, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was credited with helping to spark the American Civil War; her elder sister, Catharine, reinvented women’s household work as home economics Their brother Henry Ward Beecher was one of America’s most successful preachers before the scandalous 1875 adultery trial that almost destroyed him Born in 1775 to a long line of Connecticut blacksmiths, Lyman Beecher studied at Yale College and was ordained a Congregationalist minister in 1798 At a time when the staunch Puritanism of early New England was giving way to Unitarianism and transcendentalism, Lyman Beecher clung to the harsher beliefs of the First Great Awakening He would enjoy national fame and weather severe disapproval during ministerial postings in Hartford, Boston, and Cincinnati, where he was preacher, professor, and president of the fledgling Lane Theological Seminary A stern but loving father, Lyman Beecher was deeply involved in the religious and professional lives of his 11 children by two marriages He saw all seven of his sons become clergymen before he died in 1863 His eldest child, Catharine, lost her fiancé, a promising mathematician, in a shipwreck and devoted her life thereafter to female education Beginning in 1823 when she established the Hartford Female Seminary (soon hiring sister Harriet as a teacher), Catharine advocated an expanded academic curriculum for girls and helped make teaching an honored career for women at a time when men still dominated education Her 1841 Treatise on Domestic Economy was a huge success, endowing women’s work with scientific rigor In 1850 she founded Milwaukee Female College, where young women were trained systematically to become