In the last article, I highlighted two women whose connections to Transcendentalism were important: Margaret Fuller, editor of the Dial journal, literary critic, essayist, foreign correspondent, and historian; and Mary Moody Emerson, aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In this article, I highlight more women of Transcendentalism: Harriet Martineau, the Peabody sisters, and Julia Ward Howe.

Harriet Martineau*

Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau and her brother, James, were not strictly speaking Transcendentalists, as this was an American movement and they were English. But both were involved in the thought that brought forth the Transcendentalist flowering, and remained part of the circle of ideas as the movement developed.  Among other accomplishments, Martineau introduced Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller.

Some links:

Harriet Martineau
Part of a website created by British teachers, this profile is hyperlinked to many related subjects for easier understanding and study.

Unsparing Witness
Article by Jack Beatty focuses on one aspect of Martineau's Society in America: her observations on the impact of sexual relationships between slaveholders and slaves.

U.S. Political Thought, Lecture 8
Part of this lecture summarizes Martineau's observations in Society in America.

The Woman Who Thought Like a Man
An essay on Harriet Martineau and her thought.

Society in America
Selections from Martineau's observations from her 1837 trip to the United States.

Peabody Sisters

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804-1894), Mary Tyler Peabody Mann (1806-1887), and Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne (1809-1871) were the eldest of seven children. Their father Nathaniel Peabody once taught at Phillips Andover Academy but during their childhood was a dentist in Salem, Massachusetts.  Their mother ran a school with an emphasis on bringing out the unique excellence in every student, girls included.  Through their mother's influence primarily, each of these sisters read widely and had a broad range of interests.

Elizabeth became a teacher in her mother's school, then briefly and unsuccessfully opened her own.  Continuing her own learning, she studied Greek with young Ralph Waldo Emerson as her private tutor in 1822.

In 1823 she went to Maine to teach for two years; when she left, Mary took her place.   A year later, when both Mary and Elizabeth had returned to Boston, they opened a school together for young children in Brookline.  In these years, Sophia, still at home, began to learn to paint and draw.

William Ellery Channing enrolled his daughter Mary in the Peabody sisters' school in 1826.  Through this connection, Elizabeth began a long and rewarding friendship with Channing, who started meeting with her, first to discuss educational ideas, then later helped her study further in philosophy, religion, education and literature.  From 1826, she began copying and preparing Channing's sermons for printing, a practice she continued until 1842, for a total of about fifty of Channing's best.  He also discussed many of his sermons with her as he was preparing them, depending on her responses to help him make revisions.

(Near the end of Channing's career, as he was rethinking his views on how to end slavery, he relied upon his conversations with Elizabeth to help him develop his thoughts.)

In 1834, Bronson Alcott opened his experimental school, and employed both Elizabeth and Margaret Fuller as teachers.  Elizabeth's writing about the school added to Alcott's fame.  Sophia's paintings and illustrations had begun to attract notice for their professionalism; her illustration of Bronson Alcott teaching served as frontispiece of a book he published about his school and it's philosophy.  When Alcott became embroiled in controversy for writing in his book about pregnancy in a way too open for many of his peers, Elizabeth found her connection helped lead to a period of unemployment and difficult financial struggles.

Elizabeth and Mary, living together at a boarding-house during this period, had struck up a friendship with Horace Mann.  Sophia, meanwhile, began a friendship with a neighbor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose work Elizabeth had noticed and helped promote.   Sophia, often ill and isolated in her room, became more interested in socializing as a result of Nathaniel's visits, it is said, and by 1838, Sophia and Nathaniel secretly agreed to be married.  Her illustrations began to appear in some of his writings.

In 1839, Elizabeth, together with her former tutor and now friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, discovered the poet Jones Very, and Peabody published his Poems and Essays.   In 1840, Elizabeth, having moved to a home in Boston, opened a bookstore in the front parlor, selling and loaning books.  This bookstore, until its closing in 1850, became a center for the Transcendentalists.  Margaret Fuller's "Conversations" were held there.  Plans for Brook Farm were drawn up and discussed.

Elizabeth began to publish essays and other materials.  She thus became the first woman publisher in Boston, and, probably, the first in the United States.  She published Channing and Hawthorne.  Her single issue of a Transcendentalist periodical, Aesthetic Papers, included the first publication of Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.

Sophia and Nathaniel married in 1842, struggling financially until The Scarlet Letter's popularity after its publication in 1850.When Sophia became very ill, Mary went with her to Cuba, where Mary worked as a governess while Sophia recuperated.   Sophia and Mary returned to Boston, where Mary began teaching again, and also began working with Horace Mann as a secretary, aiding him in his work in educational reform.   They grew closer, and were married in 1843.  Mary and Horace honeymooned in Europe with Samuel Gridley Howe and his new bride, Julia Ward Howe.

Horace left his educational work for the US Congress, working to oppose slavery and the Compromise of 1850.  In 1853, Horace was called to the Presidency of the new Antioch College in Ohio, a coeducational and nonsectarian college.  Mary took on the active job of President's wife.  She published, during her Antioch years, a combination cookbook and advice book, Christianity in the Kitchen: A Physiological Cookbooks.   She actively supported Horace's work with her own efforts in the Antioch academic community, until Mann's death in 1859.  In the next decade, she published the three volume Life and Works of Horace Mann.

The Hawthorne's, meanwhile, went to Europe for seven years, in part for Sophia's health.  Hawthorne wrote The Marble Faun there, and Sophia made significant contributions to its writing.  She was becoming more interested in writing, but Nathaniel disapproved of her passionate style. When Atlantic Monthly asked her for some contributions to publish, he blocked her from following up.

Mary returned from Ohio to Massachusetts with her family in 1859, to find that Elizabeth had taken up a new interest.  Earlier that year, Elizabeth had learned of the German kindergarten movement, which fit in perfectly with her ideas for education of the very young.  In 1860, Elizabeth, joined by Mary, began the first formally organized kindergarten in the United States.  They worked together both on that school and on promoting the idea, and published a journal on kindergartens, a work which was to be Elizabeth's main focus for most of the rest of her career and life.

When Nathaniel Hawthorne died in 1864, Sophia began editing and publishing his Notebooks.  She submitted selections to the Atlantic and published three volumes of his notes, in 1868-1870.  Unhappy family situations motivated her to move to Germany and then London with her adult children; Sophia died in London in 1870.

Elizabeth and Mary continued their work with the kindergarten movement.  They also became involved, in the late 1880s and early 1890s, in promoting the speaking career of Piute Indian Sarah Winnemucca, who, even though she had converted to Christianity, promoted the idea that Indian traditions were valuable too.  Mary helped prepare Winnemucca's writings for publication.

Mary found time to publish a novel (Juanita: A Romance of Real Life in Cuba Fifty Years Ago).  Elizabeth taught on the faculty of Bronson Alcott's Concord School of Philosophy in the 1880s.  Mary died in 1888 in Boston, and Elizabeth died in 1894 in Boston. Two years later, friends started a settlement house in Boston, the Elizabeth Peabody House, in her memory.

Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne's daughter Rose became a poet and, as Mother Mary Alphonsa Lathrop, a lay Dominican dedicated to working with incurable cancer patients.

Some links:

Famous Peabodys of the Past
A page of genealogies of Peabodys, including brief notes on the lives and writings of these three Peabody sisters (and other Peabodys, of course).

Jones Very: Biography
Brief biography of this friend of Elizabeth Peabody, crediting her with the fame of his work and his introduction to Emerson.

Jones Very: On Visiting the Graves...
Friend of Elizabeth Peabody, Jones Very was one of the less-known Transcendentalist writers.

Sophia Peabody Hawthorne Web Pages
Apparently not updated since 1996, this page highlights Sophia's own contributions as an illustrator. Site includes a biography, bibliography and two letters.

Julia Ward Howe*

Julia Ward Howe

Howe's involvement in Transcendentalism was more tangential, less central, than that of the other women highlighted.  But she was influenced by the religious and literary trends of Transcendentalism, involved in the social reforms which were part of the Transcendentalist circle. She was a close friend of Transcendentalists, both male and female.  She was an active participant, particularly in carrying Transcendentalist ideas and commitments through the American Civil War and into the next decades.

More on Julia Ward Howe

More on Transcendentalist women

Puzzled by what Transcendentalism is?

*graphics on this page © 1999-2000 www.arttoday.com
used with permission