WOMEN WRITER

S

By: Rachel Fitz and Julie Elkin

HOW THEY CAME TO BE Lending Libraries

In the 1780’s in England lending libraries allowed women to distribute their work

Also increased the amount of reading material that other women could buy

Women wanted equalityUsed eloquent, common, and instructive

language to emphasize this point and illustrate examples of their desired role in society (Irwin)

MALE VS. FEMALE Male

Make fun of women in their comparisons to Nature

Men emphasized their superior role in society

Even in their artistic expression the language and imagery they chose depicted women

Wrote superior above the general person’s knowledge because they were concerned about losing their place (Jugel)

MALE VS. FEMALE Female

Women’s place was at home and in nurturing, domestic side of the world

they had a unique insight because they were not part of the political world

focused on morality and equality rather than the search for “self- creation, self- comprehension and self- positioning” (Jugel)

Women brought the language to the reader and formed a connection that increased readership and afforded women more social power as well as presence outside the male dominated world (Jugel)

MARGARET FULLER

Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli born May 23, 1810 in Cambridge

MassachusettsAttended few schools but was

mostly taught by her fatherTaught her siblings after her father

diedTaught in schools for two years, but

discovered that it didn’t leave enough time for writing (Goodwin)

In 1839, she oversaw “conversations” they were discussions among women about

their lack of access to higher education She was the first full-time female book

reviewer in journalism She wrote Women in the Nineteenth Century

it was the first major feminist work done in the United States

(Sarah)

Margaret Fuller was the best-read person in New EnglandSo she was the first woman allowed to use

the Harvard Library She was the first editor of “The Dial”

in 1940 “The Dial” was a quarterly

periodical that shared New England opinions about transcendentalismOn this paper she worked under

Ralph Waldo Emerson (Sarah)

She was on staff of the New York Tribune in 1845She worked under Horace GreelyShe was sent to Europe as the first

female correspondent and became involved in the Italian revolution (Goodwin)

She met Giovanni Ossoli They got married and had a child

On their way back she became shipwrecked with her family

Margaret Fuller drowned July 19th 1850 (Goodwin)

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

born in 1832 Her parents were transcendentalists

and focused on reform She was an American novelist

Best known for Little Women It was set in her Concord home

with her family in 1868 In Concord she became friends with

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Nathaniel Hawthorne (MacDonald)

Many of her first poems were published under the name AN Barnard

She wrote for the Atlantic Monthly She enlisted as a nurse when the

Civil War broke out Her letters home resulted in

Hospital Sketches She followed in her mother’s

footsteps and became involved in reforms such as abolition of slavery and women’s rights (MacDonald)

She wrote many more novels including Good Wives, Little Men. An Old Fashioned Girl, Jo’s Boys, Lulu’s Library, and A Garland for Girls

Louisa May Alcott died in 1888 She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

in Concord along with many other famous writers of the time (MacDonald)

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

born in 1811 in Litchfield Connecticut

her father was a famous protestant preacher

began by writing for local religious periodicals

she wrote poems, travel books, biographical sketches and children and adult novels

predated Mark Twain (Harriet)

most well known for writing Uncle Tom’s CabinAlso wrote A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and

Dred Lincoln called her “The little lady that made

this big war” Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins Freeman

were influenced by her she died in 1896 (Harriet)

QUESTIONS

QUESTIONS Name a difference between male and

female writing What was a woman’s place during the

Romantic era? Margaret Fuller oversaw

“conversations” What were they? What was Louisa May Alcott’s most

popular novel? Which president called Harriet Beecher

Stowe “ the little lady that started this big war?

ANSWERS Men wrote at a more complicated level

than a general person could understand. They also depicted men as superior. Women created more of a connection between the reader and the book.

A woman’s place was in the home where she focused on the family

Conversations were discussions among women about their lack of access to higher education

ANSWERS Louisa May Alcott’s most popular novel

was Little Women President Abraham Lincoln

SOURCES Goodwin, Joan. "Margaret Fuller." The Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist

     Biography. Ed. Peter Hughes and Jim Nugent. N.p., 2009. Web. 24 Mar.      2010. <http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/margaretfuller.html>.

"Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811-1896." A Celebration of Women Writers. Ed. Mary Mark Ockerbloom. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2010.      <http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/stowe/StoweHB.html>.

MacDonald, Ruth K. Louisa May Alcott. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Print.

"(Sarah) Margaret Fuller." American Trancendentalism Web. N.p., n.d. Web. 24      Mar. 2010. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/      fuller/>.

Irwin, Keith Gordon. The Romance of Writing. Illus. Keith Grodon Irwin. New York

     City: Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, 1956. 102-155. Print. Jugel, Matthias L., and Stephan J. Schmidt, eds. "Feminism and Romanticism ."

     snipsnap.org. Ed. Nfava. N.p., 2002. Web. 24 Mar. 2010.      <http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:s2BcR17VDq0J:ssad.bowdoin.edu:8668/space/feminism%2Band%2Bromanticism+importance+of+romanticism+women+writers&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us>.