Margaret Fuller

Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli lived from 1810 to 1850. She worked as an editor for the Transcendentalist journal, *The Dial*. She was the first full-time female book reviewer.

## Early Life

Margaret Fuller was born on the 23rd of May in 1810 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. Her parents were Timothy Fuller, who was disappointed his firstborn wasn’t a son, and Margaret Crane Fuller. She was their eldest daughter. By the age of nine, she dropped the Sarah and only went by Margaret. Her father began to teach her how to read and write when she was three. He encouraged her to learn subjects that were, at the time, considered more masculine. She was barred from reading pieces her father found too feminine, such as etiquette books and sentimental novels. Her first sibling, Julia Adelaide, died when she was fourteen months old. After her second sibling, Eugene, was born her father began to teach her Latin. She became familiar enough to translate passages written by the Roman poet, Virgil. Fuller once blamed her father's expectations for her recurring nightmares and sleep-walking episodes. After the birth of her third sibling, William Henry, her father was elected as a representative for Congress.

Fuller did not begin to attend school until age fourteen. In 1824 she was sent to the School for Young Ladies in Groton, Massachusetts. When she returned home two years later she continued her education by studying German and Italian and gained the acquaintance of several notable intellectuals. The intense and assertive personality that won the hearts of these intellectuals, however, turned away other young women.

## Teaching Career

The death of her father in 1835 put Fuller in a position of financial responsibility for her widowed mother and younger siblings. Around the time of his death she had been working on a biography of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but she abandoned the project. She taught at Bronson Alcott’s school Temple School and the Green Street School in Providence, RI. This arrangement did not last as it did not give her enough time to work on her writing.

## Writing Career

Fuller moved to Jamaica Plain, a suburb of Boston. In 1839 she began to conduct formal conversations on various topics, often revolving around issues pertaining to women. She maintained friendships with many prominent intellects. She was friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson and gave him lessons on German.
Fuller, Emerson, and others came together to create The Dial a journal meant to publish the works of the Transcendentalists. She worked with Emerson as the editor for two years, from 1840 to 1842. She also wrote essays for the journal, including one of her most famous works The Great Lawsuit: *Man 'versus' Men, Woman 'versus' Women*.

In 1843, after a trip through the Midwest, Fuller published a book about her travels called *Summer on the Lakes.* This book earned her an invitation by Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the New York Tribune, to be a literary critic for his newspaper. Her expanded version of The Great Lawsuit was published in 1845 under the title, *Women in the Nineteenth Century*, considered to be the first feminist work published in the US. While a critic, she had several run-ins with Edgar Allan Poe. Poe seemed to have a great disliking for Fuller as a person calling her a "busy-body" and an "old maid." He did, however, have respect for her work as a critic and an author.

## Years in Europe

In 1846 Fuller was sent to Europe to be a foreign correspondent for the Tribune. In 1847 she travelled to Italy, where she met and fell in love with Giovanni Angelo, the Marchese d'Ossoli. Ossoli was ten years younger than her, but they had similar values. The couple also became involved in the Roman revolution and had a son in 1848. It is possible they married in 1849, though whether they did or not is unknown. During the siege of Rome by French forces, Fuller volunteered in one of the supporting hospitals, while Ossoli helped with the fighting.

## Death

In 1849, the couple fled Italy and planned to move back to the US. Before boarding the ship, Fuller reportedly felt ill at ease. She left some of her possessions with friends in Europe, but took with her a manuscript about the Roman revolution. The ship, the *Elizabeth* crashed just off the coast of New York and the first mate fled, leaving the passengers to save themselves. Fuller refused to leave the ship without both Ossoli and her child. Thoreau made an attempt to recover her manuscript, but it was never found, nor Fuller's body. Only her child's body was found, washed up on shore.

Emerson would later put together her memoirs, though these are regarded as being largely inaccurate - or at least heavily embellished. Many of her other friends found the memoirs inaccurate to the woman they had known. A friend she had known since adolescence, George T. Davis, reportedly called parts of them "sublime bosh."

## Possible Sexuality

It is possible that Margaret Fuller was bisexual. At eighteen, Fuller met girl named Anna Barker, a relative of the Astors. Barker had been sent to Cambridge to become a more cultured individual. Upon meeting Barker, Fuller became infatuated. When she was older, ruminating in her journal about Barker, she wrote: “It is so true that a woman may be in love with a woman and a man with a man.” In this same journal entry she waxes poetic about what their relationship once was and what it opened her up to.

She also translated Elizabeth von Armin's *Die Günderode*, an epistolary work composed of a correspondence between Armin and another German author, Karoline von Günderode. The relationship between Armin and Günderode is often interpreted as homosexual in nature.

## Sources

1. https://www.biography.com/people/margaret-fuller-9303889

2. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/578469

3. https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/fuller/

4. http://www.americanheritage.com/content/humanity-said-edgar-allan-poe-divided-men-women-and-margaret-fuller

1. ↑ Margaret Fuller’s “The Great Lawsuit Man ‘versus’ Men, Woman ‘versus’ Women” was published in The Dial (1843) of which she was editor. After initial success, Fuller expanded her article into a book which she published in 1845. This piece discusses a transcendentalist, feminist, vision for the future. Fuller’s first point is that women and abolitionists are fighting for the same cause and ought to join forces to be more effective in fighting for what they want. Fuller makes the point that men should not be considered the head of the household. Instead the husband and wife should be equal. Fuller points out that if the husband dies, the wife only inherits half of the property which forces her into poverty. Fuller points out that men are unlikely to solve this problem, and therefore women must take part in government to solve it themselves. Fuller finishes her point by stating that the current arrangement would be fine if men were angels, but they are not and so women need to speak for themselves. Fuller emphasizes the value of self- reliance in women, contrary to the views of most men who believed women ought to rely on men completely. She adds that sentimental value left over from childhood is is unlikely to motivate sons to help their mothers, and women are more than just mothers. On the topic of marriage, Fuller defines four types which parallel Aristotle's three types of friendship.  The first type of marriage is a household partnership: the couple is married because of necessity. The woman needs a husband to provide for her and the husband needs a wife to make his home comfortable. This type of marriage is comparable to Aristotle’s definition of a friendship of utility; the friends use each other to gain an end (eg. higher social standing). The second type of marriage is mutual admiration: here the husband and wife admire each other for their beauty or personality. This type of marriage is similar to Aristotle’s definition of friendship of pleasure. The friends like each other but their love is only skin deep so to say. The third type of marriage is intellectual companionship; the couple loves each other for their mind and they make each other better people. This version of marriage ties in with friendship of the good. The friends bring out the best in each other and truly love and respect each other. The final type of marriage is religious marriage. This type of marriage invites a spiritual dimension into the marriage. Fuller’s final point is that girl’s education needs to be equal to boys, not so that they can be better mothers or wives, but so they can be better people.