Sarah Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)

By Josette

For my first post, I want to discuss one of the earliest and most important American journalists, Sarah Margaret Fuller. Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fuller was taught by her father. Fuller’s father, a lawyer and politician, provided a traditional male education, teaching her Latin and Greek, instead of the typical etiquette instruction women of the time often received. As she matured, she solidified her reputation as one of the best-read individuals in New England. Using this reputation as a foundation, she hoped to build a career in journalism. Fuller published her first piece in the North American Review at the end of 1834. The articled gently criticized the work of George Bancroft, a popular historian. However, after the sudden death of her father, she abandoned other projects in order to care for the family. In 1836, she accepted a position as a teacher at the Temple School in Boston and then at the Greene Street School in Providence the following year. Around this time, she began holding “conversations,” study and conversation groups in which women could further their education. In 1839, Ralph Waldo Emerson appointed Fuller the editor of a new transcendentalist journal named The Dial. She successfully guided the journal through its first two years, becoming a central figure in the transcendentalist movement. During this period, she authored two of her most important works, The Great Lawsuit (Later republished as Women of the 19th Century) and Summer on the Lakes. In order to complete her research, she received permission to use the library at Harvard College, becoming the first woman to do so. In 1844, Fuller moved to New York and became the first female editor at the New York Tribune. As a literary critic, she was also the first full-time book reviewer in journalistic history. Two years later, the paper sent her to Europe, where she worked as its first female foreign correspondent. Arriving in England, she interviewed several popular authors, including George Sand, whom she disparaged for sexist comments during the interview. Supposedly, Sand, a controversial female French aristocrat who was known for wearing men’s clothing, believed women unfit for political service and thus refused to run for the French National Assembly. In England, Fuller fell in love with Giovanni Angelo Ossoli and moved with him to Italy. There, she witnessed and participated in the revolution that called for a Roman Republic in 1849. During her four years in Europe, she wrote more than 30 reports that she sent back to the United States. Unfortunately, a shipwreck on her way back to the United States the following year claimed her life and a good deal of the work she completed while in Europe. Fuller paved the way for many future female journalists. A prominent women’s rights advocate, she called attention to female intelligence and capabilities, becoming one of the most respected women in journalistic history.