Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was an extraordinary American editor, critic, translator, author, feminist, and public intellectual during the first half of the 19th century.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s Journalist was an extraordinary American editor, critic, translator, author, feminist, and public intellectual during the first half of the 19thcentury. Often associated with the Transcendentalist movement, she is known for publishing a number of important books and essays, including a book generally considered to be the first major feminist work in American history. After taking a job with the New York Tribune later in life, she became the first full-time literary critic in the industry. She was also the first American woman to serve as a foreign correspondent and as a war correspondent. Let’s talk about Margaret Fuller.
Sarah Margaret Fuller, known as Margaret, was born on May 23, 1810 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts to Timothy and Margaret Crane Fuller.
From a young age, Margaret received a rigorous education from her father, who insisted that his eldest daughter have the same academic opportunities as any son. At three and a half years old, she learned to read and write, and soon after that she started learning Latin, with a focus on translation. Margaret was forbidden from reading typical books published for women such as etiquette or housekeeping books, though she did learn many of these skills from her mother.
When Margaret was 7 years old, her father was elected to the United States Congress. Among other things, this meant that he had to spend about 6 months a year in Washington, D.C. and away from his family. He continued tutoring Margaret through frequent correspondence. Margaret, who by this time had surpassed her peers intellectually, found herself in ever lonelier circumstances with few skills to make or maintain friendships.
In 1819, at the age of 9, Margaret was sent to the coed Cambridgeport Private Grammar School, which was at the vanguard of the progressive education movement. It was soon clear that Margaret was significantly more intellectually advanced than her classmates, so her parents moved her to Massachusetts’s premier all-girls academy, Dr. Park’s Lyceum for Young Ladies of Boston.
Still, that wasn’t the end of Margaret’s tour through a variety of schools. Her next stop came due to her relatives’ fear that she wouldn’t have the skills to be successful as a woman in 19th century society. In 1824, she was sent to Miss Susan Prescott’s School in Groton, which specialized in teaching young women from affluent families to be wives and mothers. Though Margaret was deeply unhappy at this school- and only stayed for one year- she did find a friend and lasting mentor there.
The following year, in 1825, Margaret’s father Timothy moved the family from Cabridgeport to Old Cambridge, just a stone’s throw from Harvard University. Margaret became significantly more comfortable in her surroundings. She regularly attended major social events and salons and became friends with many of the premier intellectuals of the period.
Then in 1831, Margaret’s father announced that he was leaving politics to become a rural farmer. The family moved to a property in Groton, far from the excitement of Cambridge. Suddenly much less well off, Margaret was tasked with the schooling of her six younger siblings. Still, she continued her studies of the classics and taught herself a number of different languages.
Because of her years spent with the intellectual elites of Cambridge, Margaret was well-known within certain circles for her deep knowledge of literature and for her translation skills, particularly with regard to works of German Romanticism. By 1835 she was publishing literary reviews in multiple major periodicals.
Later that same year, Margaret’s father died from cholera. While his death devastated Margaret and forced new responsibilities on her, it was also the impetus for a new chapter of her life. She dove into teaching, first in 1836, taking a job at the Temple School in Boston, then working for a stint at the Greene Street School in Providence, Rhode Island. . Margaret flourished as a teacher, but moved back to Boston after only one year in Providence to focus on her writing.
By 1839, Margaret had published her first book, a translation of a famous German work about Goethe, and was making a living teaching private lessons. She also hosted a series of very influential salons for women called Conversations at a local bookshop. These discussions were meant to broaden the attendees’ understanding of subjects like history, literature, the fine arts, and the natural sciences. Margaret saw it as her job to encourage women “to question, to define, to state and examine their opinions.”
In October 1839, Margaret was offered a job by her friend Ralph Waldo Emerson to edit a new transcendentalist journal called The Dial. She edited the famous journal from 1840-1844, and contributed a significant amount of her own writing. Her position quickly made her one of the most important figures in the Transcendental movement.
In 1843, Margaret spent the summer travelling through the western United States with friends. The trip gave her a new perspective on the country and particularly the Native American tribes whose societies and histories had been largely erased. She wrote a successful book about her experiences called “Summer On The Lakes in 1843.”
One of the people who read this new book was Horace Greeley, the founder of the New York Tribune. He was so impressed with Margaret’s work that he offered her a job at his newspaper as a journalist and literary critic. Margaret accepted the offer and moved to New York City. But she didn’t begin actively working for the Tribune until she finished her 1845 book entitled “Women in the Nineteenth Century.” This book is generally considered the first major work in the American Feminist literary canon.
While at the Tribune, Margaret wrote everything from literary criticism to translations of articles from foreign press. Her most famous essays covered a wide range of topics including the growing wealth disparity in post-Industrial America, the need to reform institutions like prisons and hospitals, and the social inequities faced by Black Americans and women. In all, she published more than 250 columns in the Tribune.
On August 1, 1846, the New York Tribune sent Margaret to Europe as the first American female foreign correspondent. She spent 1846 in England interviewing the likes of Thomas Carlyle and George Sand. By 1847, she had landed in Rome where she fell in love with the Italian revolutionary Giovanni Angelo Ossoli. The two lived together in Florence, where Margaret gave birth to their son in 1848. By that point, Margaret had decided to stay in Italy to take part in the revolution.
During the height of the fighting, Margaret took charge of a city hospital in Rome while it was under siege by the French. When Rome fell, she and Ossoli made the decision to return to the United States.
Margaret and Ossoli set sail from Italy on May 17th, 1850. Almost immediately, the ship’s captain contracted smallpox and died before the ship was even out of the Mediterranean. The trip continued under the first mate, but then on July 19th, 1850, the ship ran aground off the shore of New York’s Fire Island. Though they were in sight of land, the treacherous winds and waves made it impossible for them to swim to shore. Margaret, Ossoli, and their infant son all perished, along with Margaret’s recently finished manuscript about the Italian Revolution. Margaret was just 40 years old.
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Talk to you tomorrow!