Margaret Fuller author and leader of Transcendentalist thought
1810-1850
Sarah Margaret Fuller was born at
Cambridgeport (now part of
Cambridge),
Massachusetts, on May 23, 1810. She was educated at home by her father, the American lawyer and legislator,
Timothy Fuller and by age ten she was reading
classics in
Latin. Later, she attended a finishing school in
Groton, Connecticut. Margaret learned several modern languages (in particular
German) and was familiar with the literature of other cultures. When she was in her mid-twenties, she was hired by
Bronson Alcott, the father of
Louisa May Alcott, as a teacher in his
progressive Temple School. A year later, she moved to
Providence, Rhode Island, and was the principal teacher in the
Green Street School for two years.
In 1839 she returned to
Boston, where she started holding so-called "conversations" in her home on various topics which many renowned women and men attended. Since there was a ban on public speaking by women for pay at that time, this was done in
violation of the law. She was also a member of the
Transcendental Club along with Alcott,
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
W.E. Channing,
Jones Very,
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and other New England intellectuals.
From 1840 to 1842, she served as the editor of a quarterly literary publication
The Dial which she co-founded with the poet and essayist
Ralph Waldo Emerson and the critic and reformer
George Ripley and for which she also wrote numerous art reviews, as well as articles on other subjects. In 1843, The Dial published her essay
The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women in which she called for
women's equality.
In 1844 she published her first book,
Summer on the Lakes. Shortly ofter that, she was invited by the publisher
Horace Greeley to join the staff of his paper, the
New York Tribune as a book review editor. The paper had nationwide circulation and Fuller was able to encourage readers' interest in
American writers. Until then, America looked to
London for their reading material. In addition to American literature, she showed continuing support for
feminist philosophies. In 1845 she published a book
Woman in the Nineteenth Century, which became a classic of feminist thought and helped bring about the
Seneca Falls Women's Convention three years later.
In 1846, Greeley named her a
foreign correspondent for the Tribune. Fuller traveled to
Europe and sent back articles about life in the European cities. Those articles were published in 1856 as
At Home and Abroad. Her literary renown had reached the continent and helped her meet many European writers and artists.
While visiting
Rome in 1847 she
fell in love with
Marchese Giovanni Angelo d'Ossoli, a nobleman involved in revolutionary activities. They had a child a year later, a son named Angelo, and married(?) the following year. During the Revolution of 1848 and during the siege of Rome by the French forces, Fuller assumed charge of one of the hospitals of the city, while her husband took part in the fighting. The city fell in 1850 and the Ossolis were forced to flee. In May 1850, they
sailed to America. They were almost there, when off the coast of
New York, near
Fire Island, their ship ran aground in a storm and was wrecked on July 19, 1850. Her
friends, among them
Thoreau, initiated searches, but only the body of their two-year-old son was recovered.
A plaque at the Margaret Fuller Memorial on
Pyrola Path in Cambridge, Massachussets says the following:
"By birth a child of New England; by adoption a citizen of Rome; by genius belonging to the world. In youth an insatiable student seeking the highest culture; in riper years teacher, writer, critic of literature and art; in maturer age companion and helper of many earnest reformers in America and Europe."
Thanks to Norton's Anthology of American Literature