Beecher's Early Years
John Henry Newman Beecher was born in New York City on January 22, 1904. Beecher's family was descended from New England abolitionists (including Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin) and his father was a steel industry executive. In 1907, Beecher's father was transferred to Birmingham, Alabama to work for the United States Steel Corporation; as a result of this, Beecher spent the rest of his childhood in the American South.
Beecher's family had intended their son to become an executive like his father. However, as a young man Beecher went to work in the steel mills as a teenager, having graduated from high school at age sixteen. The labor abuses he saw there caused him to become active in labor movement issues. He also wrote a few of the radical activist poems he eventually became known for.
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Famous quotes containing the words early years, beecher, early and/or years:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
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