Recently posted by Bonnie Hurd Smith

Just last week, I was speaking with a neighbor of mine - an avid lover of history and the owner of an important historic house - about how often we hear the words "history is boring" from young people.

History is NOT boring. How it's TAUGHT is what's usually boring!

It pains me every time I hear those words. It also pains me when I hear the words, "I really wish I had had a good history teacher" from adult friends of mine (or from people who come to my history talks or take my walking tours). "I might have been interested in history a lot sooner," they say.

No kidding! And this is so infuriating. What a waste.

Now I am not here to beat up on history teachers. There are gifted ones out there, some of whom I know personally, and many of them have their hands tied "teaching to the test."

Still, something must be done because the state of history education in America today is appalling.

History inside of the classroom
In his speech before the National Book Foundation upon receiving the Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough - a personal hero of mine - stated:

"We, in our time, are raising a new generation of Americans who, to an alarming degree, are historically illiterate. The situation is serious and sad. And it is quite real, let there be no mistake. It has been coming on for a long time, like a creeping disease, eating away at the national memory. While the clamorous popular culture races on, the American past is slipping away, out of site and out of mind. We are losing our story, forgetting who we are and what it's taken to come this far."

He went on to say:

"Too many teachers have little if any real understanding of what they're teaching, let alone that vitality and passion for the subject that makes a great teacher so effective. If you think back to your own time in school, the courses you liked best and did best in were almost certainly the courses taught by the teachers you liked best. And the teachers you liked best were almost certainly those who were excited about the material and conveyed that excitement to you."

And so, what are we to do?

History outside of the classroom
David McCullough is 100% right that better teacher training is essential, but I also want to look OUTSIDE of the classroom because so often THAT'S where people connect. Today, we call this "public history," and here are just five examples of things you can do to SUPPLEMENT your child's classroom education -- and your own.

• Visit historic sites that "do history" well
Think about the Minuteman National Historical Park in Concord, MA at the North Bridge. Every day, there are reenactors, tours, story tellers, musket demonstrations - you name it! Boring? Hardly!

• Find historical theatrical performances
In Salem, MA, the Department of Theatre at Gordon College presents a theatrical performance at Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village, a replica colonial village along the lines of the more famous Plimoth Plantation. Visitors are entranced by these beautifully costumed actors acting out domestic scenes, playing children's games, and putting a villager in "the stocks."

• Seek out the story tellers
As the historian Barbara Tuchman says, if you want to get kids interested in history, "tell stories." You can often find these people at public libraries or historical societies. Perhaps an elder in your community is giving a talk on growing up in your town.

• Go on walking tours
Find a passionate walking tour guide and let the fun begin! History is "real" when you're on the ground and out of the books.

• Visit historical museums that know how to engage visitors
Dragging your child through a "boring" museum will not help matters. Instead, find the places that do this well. The Salem Witch Museum, for example, is the most visited museum in Salem and constantly ranks at the top in the state and the region. Why? Because they tell the story in an engaging - yet responsible - way.

• Attend demonstrations and reenactments
Historic houses and museums will often present demonstrations of early trades and skills, weaponry, or hearth cooking. Military encampments are also great fun, and with the anniversary of the Civil War in full swing they shouldn't be hard to find.

Opportunities for business
And for you business owners out there, "out of the classroom" experiences like these provide you with the opportunity to be a local hero and attract customers. Seek out the talented public history teachers and projects and find ways to support them, work with them, or promote them. You will be promoting yourself at the same time -- in a non-sales environment and through good works.

Why is it important to engage your kids - and yourself - in history? To quote David McCullough again:

"Indifference to history isn't just ignorant, it's rude. It's a form of ingratitude. I'm convinced that history encourages, as nothing else does, a sense of proportion about life, gives us a sense of the relative scale of our own brief time on earth and how valuable that is.

What history teaches it teaches mainly by example. It inspires courage and tolerance. It encourages a sense of humor. It is an aid to navigation in perilous times. We are living now in an era of momentous change, of huge transitions in all aspects of life-here, nationwide, worldwide-and this creates great pressures and tensions. But history shows that times of change are the times when we are most likely to learn. This nation was founded on change. We should embrace the possibilities in these exciting times and hold to a steady course, because we have a sense of navigation, a sense of what we've been through in times past and who we are."

Amen, David McCullough!

What about you?
And so, what are your plans for this weekend? What history projects can your business support? They are out there!

The focus of my business, History Smiths, is to help other businesses attract customers, secure customer loyalty, and raise their stature in the community they serve by incorporating "history" into their marketing program - all essential business goals.
 
This is an unusual approach to marketing, to be sure. Suggesting that history provides real marketing opportunities leads invariably to comments like: "Really? How?" And I respond by citing specific examples. People get it.  
 
But in my enthusiasm for engaging more and more businesses in using and supporting history, I think it's important to take a step back and answer the question: Why does history matter?
 
Why is it worth spending money, time, and energy on history?
 
Yes, you can achieve marketing goals by following our strategies, but there is a bigger picture and a larger purpose. By involving your business in promoting history, you will carve out a role for yourself in this good work.
 
And we all have a role to play - for-profit, nonprofit, and city and town entities alike. Even though these three sectors don't always "play well" together, we all have a stake in knowing and telling our history.  We all have a stake in the outcome.
 
It's who we are
For starters, history is OUR STORY. It's who we are. It's how we got here. For example, when First Lady Michelle Obama made her inaugural comment that she was finally proud to be American as she watched the first African American sworn into the presidency, the people who became enraged and called her unpatriotic didn't know their history.
 
Instead, her statement was highly patriotic. She was celebrating the fact that the PROMISE of America was front-and-center. Since the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, it has taken quite a while for America to realize full equality for all of its citizens - and we are not there yet.
 
All of those angry people should have joined with Michelle Obama to celebrate that proud moment in American history, regardless of their party politics.
 
Knowing who we are and how we got here is supposed to lead to a better understanding and tolerance of each other. As another example, if we don't understand that white Europeans invaded Native American land in the late 1500s and early 1600s, wiped out hundreds of  thousands of people with disease, took their homeland, "relocated" them out of the way, denied them citizenship, and on and on, how can we possibly understand where Native Americans are coming from today?
 
Stories of inspiration
But history, for me, is not solely about injustice and anger -- it's about TRIUMPH. It's about the perseverance, ingenuity, and just plain guts that so many people have shown to get us to where we are today.
 
For centuries, people have started successful businesses that built the wealthiest nation in the world. Who were they? How did they do it? What can we learn from them?
 
I am particularly interested in the stories of people who succeeded against unjust laws, poverty, race, or gender prejudice. Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery in the south, was a central force for abolition and securing the right to vote for African American men. Abraham Lincoln's rise to the presidency out of a very poor upbringing is legendary. The African American men of the Massachusetts 54th Civil War Regiment proved beyond any doubt that they were as patriotic, brave, and capable as any white soldier.  Women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone devoted their lives to securing the right to vote for women.
 
And all of these people succeeded against low expectations. How? What was their mindset? Where did their courage come from? What were the tactics they used? What can we learn and adapt for our own purposes?
 
Truly, all of these stories - and thousands more -- comprise who we are as a nation.
 
And if you think about, people all around the world still look to America for examples of how women and men fought injustice and won. I have given enough walking tours and talks in Boston to international audiences to know this is true. In many parts of the world, people are overcoming the obstacles we did years ago. They want to know who did it, and how.
 
As American citizens, and as citizens of the world, we need to know, share, and celebrate these stories.
 
Your role as a business
When you and your business become involved in history, you are saying: Yes, this is important. I will figure out the role I can play, and I will do it.
 
And when you do, you will be:
 
• Preserving our material culture
What historians mean by "material culture" is the "stuff" - the buildings, archives, and objects we want to preserve for future generations.

• Inspiring young people
Young people need good role models, even dead ones - especially kids who are struggling with their own issues of poverty, a dysfunctional family, race, or gender. Presented well, young people really do resonate to the stories of successful people who overcame obstacles and stood strong for just causes.

• Inspiring people of other ages with these stories
We are all trying to figure out who we are and what we are meant to do in the world. We all need regular doses of inspiration!

• Helping to tell the stories
Your business's involvement will support the researchers, public historians, interpreters (like National Park Service Rangers), curriculum developers, teachers, managers of historic sites - all of the people who find the stories and tell the stories. And there are always more to find and tell. History is never static!

• Aligning yourself with good work in the world
This is important for most of us. We all want to contribute to something "larger."

• Understanding and embracing your role in this good work
As a result, no matter what your contribution, you are part of the continuum of history. You will be creating a legacy for your business.
 
We all have a role to play
It bears repeating - we all have a role to play in the work of history. The banker who funds a local history project for students to get them involved in their community history, the project's sponsoring organization, the researcher who finds the information, the teacher who puts it all together, the parents who volunteer, the marketing /PR person who promotes the project, the media that provides coverage, and the students who do the work and carry their new-found knowledge with them to who-knows-where - everyone has a role to play, no more, no less important.
 
This is big stuff. And it's GOOD stuff.
 
And by the way? When you decide to become involved with history, you will be a much more engaged corporate citizen in the community you serve. You will be a hero.
 
 
 

Dear Friends,

This spring, I launched History Smiths, a marketing company that works with businesses to incorporate history -- their own and their community's -- into their marketing program and community outreach.

During my many years as a fundraiser, event planner, marketing and PR professional working in the nonprofit sector as a business person, museum staffer, and volunteer, I have witnessed over and over again how many businesses do want to support local history -- and not just by writing a check. There are all kinds of ways for businesses to become much more involved, and I believe "history" will ultimately benefit. So will the businesses!

My Simmons profile needs to be updated, but in the meantime please visit my company Web site to learn more.

Cheers,

Bonnie

It is so cool to have her back in town, and if you don't know about Ali Brown you really should. Her company was named to Inc's top 500 last year and there's a good reason.

My own awareness of her happened last fall, when I reached a very, very low moment in my business and my life. After spending 20 years servicing the nonprofit sector through my business, doing all kinds of good work as a volunteer, writing and publishing books, I found myself at early mid-life completely exhausted and really not knowing where to turn. I had a HUGE resume of accomplishments, and no money. No one to turn to for help, no financial security. But I also knew that I could NOT keep doing things the way I had been. It was just not in my best interest to take care of everyone and everything else except me.

Still, what to do? Enter Ali Brown and her Blueprint for Solopreneurs system.

I read about her in the Simmons alumni magazine last fall, was curious, went to her website, and wasn't really sure about any of this until I read her biography. So much of what she said really resonated. I fanned her on Facebook, and joined her email list to receive her free Ezine. The Blueprint looked right for me, but I couldn't afford it.

Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, she offered it at 30% off with a 6-month payment plan. I dove in, and started her course on New Year's Day 2010. The experience has been completely transformational. Ali is not only a talented business coach on the personal side, she also delivers on the practical side. I really needed both, from someone I could trust who had been where I was and "done it."

Subsequent mini courses on women and money, branding, and niche marketing have been incredibly helpful as well.

Ali and her colleagues deliver huge content, fabulous customer service, and the feeling that you are part of the gang.

If you are a woman entrepreneur, do yourself a favor and check her out.

She is an alum of whom we can be very proud, and I can add one more -- grateful.

A Unitarian Universalist sermon by Bonnie Hurd Smith

Judith not only had firm ideas about improving the status of women in America, she also had the ability to write well enough to be published.

Why shouldn't she speak up? Who else would? Didn't she have a responsibility to stand up for women who could not? For her daughter, her nieces, and for future generations? And, of course that's exactly what she did.

In 1790 Judith bravely published "On the Equality of the Sexes" -- under an assumed name, as 18th century propriety dictated. It is the earliest known published essay on this subject in America, predating Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman which some of you may know. "On the Equality of the Sexes" was widely read and discussed, and Judith forcefully, and effectively argued that women's minds are every bit as capable as men's.

She wrote, "Yes, ye lordly, ye haughty sex, our souls are by nature equal to yours; the same breath of God animates, enlivens, and invigorates us; and that we have not fallen lower than yourselves, let those witness who have greatly towered above the various discouragements by which they have been so heavily oppressed...."5

An acceptance of male and female equality logically flew in the face of how Americans raised their daughters. Judith believed that we must teach our girls from an early age to "reverence themselves."6

In 1784, she wrote, "I would, from the early dawn of reason address [my daughter] as a rational being; hence, I apprehend, the most valuable consequences would result....I would...by all means guard [my daughters] against a low estimation of self...I would destroy the weapons of flattery, or render them useless, by leaving not the least room for their operation."7

In fact, self-reverence was something Judith thought and wrote about a great deal. In terms of her own theology, this first came from an understanding of one's duty to God. As God's children, who were created and loved by Him, it was our duty to be and do our best, to realize the potential He placed in each one of us -- to develop our minds, value and take care of ourselves, take responsibility for our lives and our families, extend our hearts to other members of the "Family of Man."

I know from reading Judith's letters that her parents raised her this way. It put starch in her backbone, and established a self-confidence that -- combined with her faith -- was unshakably strong. She was anchored to this internal truth, anchored to God's love for her.

But this notion of women being able to take care of themselves was a foreign concept in the 18th century. Women were supposed to marry, or turn to a male relative for shelter. Women had very few legal rights in terms of owning property or having control over any assets. Very few professions were open to them. Financial independence was unheard of.

Why was this the case? It just didn't make sense. Judith herself had known the helplessness of extreme poverty because of her first husband's business failings, his untimely death, and her own fearful widowhood. At the time, she had no meaningful source of income except to take in sewing or boarders. But if women were supposed to care for the well being of their families, why was this situation acceptable?

Laws and customs had to change. As Judith wrote in 1793,  "Was I the father of a family ... I would give my daughters every accomplishment which I thought proper; and, to crown all, I would early accustom them to habits of industry and order ... they should be enabled to procure for themselves the necessities of life; independence should be placed within their grasp."8 

Education was, of course, a key to improving the status of girls and women and Judith was among our earliest advocates for quality female education. She never forgot what she had been deprived of, and, again, these were times of potential change. Opportunities were opening up for girls with the increasing number of female academies. She wrote, "such is my confidence in THE SEX, that I expect to see our young women forming a new era in female history...The noble expansion conferred by a liberal education will...give them a glance of those vast tracts of knowledge which they can never explore, until they are accommodated with far other powers than those at present are assigned them...."9

Hers was a strong public voice, one that was effectively connecting her ideas with the outside world through her essays. She had been using the pen name "Constantia" to disguise her identity, but Constantia was clearly a woman.

In 1792, Judith decided to develop a political column for the popular Massachusetts Magazine in which she assumed a male identity. As a man calling for progress for women, she knew her ideas would be considered and not dismissed. She could also speak up for those less fortunate and try to change how society treated the poor and those in debt. She could decry violence and call for peace. She could put forth high expectations of character and virtue in American society. All this, to make a difference, she could do as a man.

And Judith was right. Her column, called "The Gleaner," was read and discussed and everyone wanted to know who "he" was. In 1798, she decided to self-publish these essays as a book, selling advance subscription copies to America's most prominent citizens including President Adams and former President Washington. And in her book, she revealed her identity and was now, indisputably, an intellect and a pioneer for women in her own right.

Judith was political, but she was also philosophical and theological. The second magazine column she developed in 1792, called "The Repository," was filled with thoughtful and probing writing on subjects close to her heart -- including Universalism.

And Judith was not just a literary Universalist. Today, we would call her a religious educator, a lay leader, or perhaps a lay minister.

Even before she gave birth to her own daughter, there were nieces, nephews, children of Universalist friends in Gloucester, and two orphaned girls she adopted with whose moral and religious upbringing Judith was deeply concerned. She was a very hands-on mother, aunt, cousin, or friend.

Her Universalist lessons were so popular, the parents of these children encouraged her to write down what she was teaching, which, of course, she did. In 1782, Judith published a catechism for children, and although she did not put her name to it, we now know that it was among the earliest Universalist writings published in this country, and considered the first by an American Universalist woman. In its preface, Judith tells her young readers that women and men are equal in the eyes of God.

Judith also counseled people who were dying, or who had lost a loved one.  Death from childbirth, disease, war, the sea, and so on was commonplace, and Judith was a good friend to those around her on this subject, reassuring people about life after this one and our indisputable connection to the next world.

In 1794, when her brother Fitz William's little girl Anna Maria died, Judith wrote to her mother:

"...To say that I have mourned with you, the removal of the lovely blossom, that opened so fair, and for a time continued one of the sweetest ornaments which our family could produce -- would but vaguely express the feelings of my heart...

But, my Love, our Anna Maria is transported to the garden of our God, with immortal youth and beauty she shall flourish there, in worlds beyond the sky we shall again rejoin her, and eternal pleasures await us there...our loved ones are not lost -- they are only gone before, and they are safely lodged in that Paradise, where our vacant seats will not long remain unoccupied...."10

Judith's happy, fulfilling second marriage, to John Murray, only served to develop her lay ministry. He had been called, and, since God is responsible for everything that happens, so had she, she believed, been called to support the work of Universalism in her own way. Theirs was a true partnership. Or as she put it in a letter to her parents, she had "that kind of conscious complacency which must ever result from an idea that we are in the path
of duty...."11
 
And it was that sense of duty, a sense of her place in time and the importance of the written record, a sense of the value of her life, and her connectedness to future generations, that led Judith to create letter books -- blank volumes into which she copied the letters she was writing to family and friends.

She was in her early twenties at the time, and the only 18th century woman we know of who did this. And although the letter books are of enormous value as a record of historical events, they are also a conversation between Judith and us. They are filled with her ideas written in a clear and personal way that is her voice much more so than the formal voice in her essays.

I have spent countless hours in front of my microfilm reader at home getting to know her, trying to understand the character of this remarkable and accomplished Universalist woman.

Judith's legacy as a whole is something we are still coming to understand.

As Unitarian Universalists, I think it did make a difference to have a strong, female presence during the earliest days of Universalism and for its leading proponent, John Murray, to have such faith in and respect for her. Perhaps, her involvement as a religious educator and counselor to children and adults helped create a climate of acceptance for women ministers.

I do know, that for women in general, she did make a difference by stepping into the public arena, and helping to form a new era in female history. Whether or not anyone else knows that Judith's Universalism influenced her actions, we know it, and we can be proud.

I find her courage and independent spirit an inspiration as we consider our own internal truth, our own moral compass, and our own responsibility to ourselves, to our families, our friends, and to our communities today and tomorrow.

We are all the beneficiaries of this life well lived.

NOTES

5 Judith Sargent Murray (as "Constantia"), "On the Equality of the Sexes," Massachusetts Magazine, March and April, 1790.

6 Judith Sargent Murray, "The Gleaner, No. XVII," Massachusetts Magazine, October 1793 (reissued in The Gleaner: A Miscellaneous Production. Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1798).

7 Ibid.

8 Judith Sargent Murray (as "Constantia), "The Gleaner, No. XV," Massachusetts Magazine, August 1793 (reissued in The Gleaner: A Miscellaneous Production. Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1798).

9 Judith Sargent Murray, "The Gleaner, No. LXXXVII," The Gleaner: A Miscellaneous Production. Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1798.

10 Judith Sargent Murray to Anna Parsons Sargent, 19 September 1794.

11 Judith Sargent Murray to Winthrop Sargent and Judith Saunders Sargent, 31 July 1790.

Judith Sargent Murray :
Forming a New Era in Female History

A Unitarian Universalist sermon by Bonnie Hurd Smith
Part 2

Even after Judith married her first husband when she was 18, her new residence was not far from the influence and comfort of the Sargent family home. And all of a sudden, a new influence entered her consciousness and forever changed her life.

Somewhere around 1770, when Judith was nineteen years old, her father read James Relly 's book in which the Welsh itinerant preacher reinterpreted Calvinism's explanations of sin, redemption, and grace. According to Relly's Universalist logic, put very, very simply, if all had sinned in Adam, then all were saved in Christ.*

God was loving, not angry, and promised salvation to His faithful, Universal family. There is much more to say about Rellyan Universalism, of course, but suffice it to say that Relly's new theology made sense to Judith's father, and it made sense to Judith. Winthrop Sargent invited family and friends to meet in his Gloucester home to discuss Universal salvation, and Judith was an eager participant.

By the time the Universalist preacher, John Murray, arrived in Gloucester in 1774, at Winthrop Sargent's invitation, the Universalists welcomed him heartily. After four years of traveling in the colonies as an itinerant preacher, John chose to make Gloucester his home.

The Gloucester Universalists met in private homes to continue exploring Universalist theology with their new pastor, and in 1778 they were suspended from First Parish Church for not attending. Judith was among those cited in the public document. Several months later, in 1779, the Universalists published their Articles of Association, creating their own organization: the Independent Church of Christ. Judith's name appears in the document. In 1780, the Universalists built and dedicated their own meetinghouse, officially calling John Murray as their pastor. In 1782, First Parish seized articles of value owned by some of the Universalists, including Judith's father and uncle, in lieu of the taxes they refused to pay to the church -- which was still the law.

We need to understand, that in these days, to go against the church and the local government meant facing social isolation, physical threats, and loss of business income. But the Gloucester Universalists did this, and Judith, as a woman in her late twenties, was among them -- taking action at a time when women did not have political or legal standing.

The Committee of Safety that governed Gloucester took the Universalists to court to challenge their refusal to pay taxes, but the Universalists won their case -- and the first ruling in this country for freedom of religion -- not only for themselves, but for others.

Well, not only were women not supposed to be involved in church or state matters -- as Judith clearly was -- but people in the 18th century truly believed that women were not in ANY way the equals of men. Our minds were simply inferior.

Not so, according to Judith. As a Universalist, she knew that in God's eyes, women and men are every bit equal, or as she put it, "whatever is essential to the ethereal spark which animates these transient tenements, will exist when the distinction of male and female, shall be forever absorbed." To the core of her being, Judith believed in equality.**

She went so far as to challenge the ages old myth about the Fall of Eve -- scriptural proof, supposedly, that women are inferior. She wrote,  "that Eve was the weaker vessel, I boldly take upon me to deny. Nay, it should seem that she was abundantly the stronger vessel since all the deep laid Art, of the most subtle fiend that inhabited the infernal regions, was requisite to draw her from his allegiance, while Adam was overcome by the softer passions, merely by his attachment to a female."***

Women were not supposed to have a public voice in the eighteenth century either. Not only were we inferior and, therefore, didn't have anything intelligent or important to say, but our place was behind the scenes in a supportive, deferential role. Stay in our place and keep quiet.

That didn't sit well with Judith. These were defining days in America. There were passionate and thoughtful national conversations in newspapers, magazines, and parlors about what kind of country we could create and what we should expect of our citizens.

The men who were having these conversations were not going to make the world a better place for women. Abigail Adams knew that, which is what prompted her to ask John Adams to "remember the ladies" while he and his colleagues drafted our country's defining legal documents.

Judith not only had firm ideas about improving the status of women in America, she also had the ability to write well enough to be published.

Why shouldn't she speak up? Who else would? Didn't she have a responsibility to stand up for women who could not? For her daughter, her nieces, and for future generations? And, of course that's exactly what she did.

To be continued...

*James Relly, Union: or A Treatise of the Consanguinity and Affinity between Christ and His Church. London, published anonymously, 1759.

**Judith Sargent Stevens (later, Murray), Some Deductions from the System Promulgated in the Page of Divine Revelation: Ranged in the Order and Form of a Catechism Intended as an Assistant to the Christian Parent or Teacher. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Norwich, Connecticut: published privately, 1782.

***Judith Sargent Stevens to Catherine Goldthwaite, 6 June 1777.

People ask me all the time why I am so invested in telling Judith Sargent Murray's story. Aside from the fact that this early women's rights advocate has essentially been lost to the historical record until recently, for me she is a source of inspiration. She determined for herself why it was that she was "here," what she was meant to do with her life, and she did it -- despite incredible eighteenth-century obstacles and with a determined and entrepreneurial spirit.

I have given this sermon at several Unitarian Universalist churches in New England. It really gets to the heart of her purpose in life and her legacy. Here is Part 1 -- I hope you enjoy it! 


Judith Sargent Murray:
Forming a New Era in Female History

A Unitarian Universalist sermon by Bonnie Hurd Smith

Part 1

She was an independent thinker. An engaged citizen. A leader. And a Universalist. She was someone who chose to act despite considerable obstacles because she had the ability to improve the lives of future generations of girls and women, and to spread the "good news" of Universalism. How she did this, and why she did this, as a woman in the earliest days of our Universalist heritage and the emerging American nation, place Judith Sargent Murray among those of whom we can be most proud.

Where did her self-confidence come from? Her drive? Her motivation to make a difference in political discourse, in the status of women, and religion? What was in her that made her want to connect with her present in ways that would influence progressive change, draw strength from her past, and leave a legacy for the future?

After all, when Judith grew up, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she was born in 1751, Massachusetts was still an English colony. There was one church and one theology. Religious and civic life were dictated by the ruling Calvinist Congregational minister. Church and state were intertwined.

Religion was a central part of everyone's life. God was to be feared. He had chosen only a few, privileged people to enjoy eternity in heaven. Prosperity was a sure sign that you were favored. You were expected to do good works nonetheless so as not to incur God's wrath, but even so, Calvinist doctrine instilled a hopeless sense that we were all sinners in the hands of an angry God. There was no room for freedom of thought on any of these matters. Fear, unquestioning loyalty, and in many cases illiteracy, enabled ministers to maintain control over their flocks.

But Enlightenment thinking was permeating Europe, and, increasingly, here, across the Atlantic. The concepts of individual liberty and educated independent thought would soon revolutionize American government, and these ideas applied to religion as well. Progressive thinking took root in Judith's family of literate, intellectual, and politically active citizens -- and it took root in Judith.

We know from Judith's personal letters that, along with religious texts, as a girl she read history, philosophy, geography, and literature. This was her own idea. Even in her forward-thinking family, she was not given the same educational advantages her brother Winthrop enjoyed. He had private tutors to prepare him for Harvard; she was taught basic reading, writing and domestic skills. But there was a family library, an encouraging father, and a very strong will to learn and improve herself.

Judith's favorite book when she was 16 years old was a volume of ancient Brahmin Indian moral lessons. I have held this little book in my hand and seen its worn pages with comments in the margins. She even wrote on the flyleaf, "the best book that ever was written."*

So we know that as a teenager, as a young woman, Judith was engaged in determining her own moral compass -- an internal truth for herself -- what was right, and virtuous. How she should act during the brief time she would occupy "this world," as she would say. Luckily, the culture of her family home allowed intellectual exploration and challenges to established ideas.

In addition, Judith's father, Winthrop Sargent, had always encouraged her early attempts to write poetry and essays. Her desire to understand her world and participate in it would become a life-long quest. She would not be content to sit on the sidelines!

*This book, The Oeconomy of Human Life, is owned by the Sargent House Museum in Gloucester, Mass., Judith's former home. I served as president of the museum in the late '90s, and used to love showing this book to visitors!

To be continued...
_______________

To order my books on Judith Sargent Murray, please visit my company website.

Excerpted from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial display written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith.


Body of Work

"She gave a national dimension to the role of the literary critic, bringing to it a political and social conscience that has been the hallmark of its best practitioners ever since."
     --Joan von Mehren

"Responding to literature and the social problems of the 1840s, she gained the power of self-expression and chose positions that made her an articulate critic of American and European culture."
    --Judith Mattson Bean and Joel Myserson        

"Most distinctive was her voice: politically savvy, culturally alert, and electrically charged by a vibrant intellectual personality grappling with one of her deepest conundrums--her identity as an American cosmopolitan liberal--resounding off the screen of the greatest European political cataclysm of the nineteenth century."         
    --Charles Capper


Articles

Literary criticism
American Monthly Magazine
Boston Daily Advertiser and Patriot
Boston Quarterly Review
The Dial
La Revue Indépendante
Present, the Spirit of the Age
New-York Tribune
Western Messenger

Cultural commentary
The Dial
New-York Tribune

Biographical sketches
The Dial
New-York Tribune

Social commentary
The Dial
New-York Tribune
United States Magazine and Democratic Review

Translations
Published privately by Elizabeth Peabody
Western Messenger


Books

"Conversations with Goethe in the
Last Years of His Life,"
(published by Hilliard, Gray and Company,
Boston, as part of George Ripley's Specimens
of Foreign Standard Literature series, 1839)

Summer on the Lakes, in 1843
(Little and Brown, Boston, 1844)

Woman in the Nineteenth Century
(Greeley and McElrath, 1845)

Papers on Literature and Art
(Wiley and Putnam, New York, 1846)

A Modern History of the Roman Republic
(actual title unknown, manuscript lost at sea)

Published Posthumously

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli
(prepared by William Henry Channing,
James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
published in 1852 by Phillips, Sampson and Company
in Boston; the best selling biography of the 1850s;
by the end of the century, there were 13 editions
including one in German)

Woman in the Nineteenth Century and Kindred Papers
(prepared by Arthur Fuller, published in 1855 by
John P. Jewitt, Boston)

At Home and Abroad
(a compilation of Tribune articles and letters written
from abroad; compiled by Arthur Fuller, published
in 1856 by Crosby, Nichols, and Company, Boston)

Life Within and Without
(Dial and Tribune articles written in New York;
compiled by Arthur Fuller, published in 1860 by
Brown, Taggard, and Chase, Boston)

Fuller quote:

"I felt a delightful glow as if I had put a good deal of my true life in it, as if, suppose I went away now, the measure of my foot-print would be left on the earth."
--Margaret Fuller, on completing Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Excerpted from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial display written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith.


Tributes

"Higher natures like hers, living for higher aims, have a more evident Providence managing their destiny, & it was manifest that she was not to come back to struggle against poverty, misrepresentation, & perhaps alienated friendships and chilled affections. There seemed no position for her here, & her life was complete, so far as experience & development went. That she shd. have accomplished so little for the public in proportion to her genius & attainments is to us a loss -- but her own aim was rather development than manifestation, & that first
aim she perfectly fulfilled. Her life will seem to us now complete & round."
    --James Freeman Clarke

"To the last her country proves inhospitable to her; brave, eloquent, subtle, accomplished, devoted, constant soul! If nature availed in America to give birth to many such as she, freedom & honour & letters & art too were safe in this new world."
    --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"She is full of all nobleness, and with the generosity native to her mind & character, appears to me an exotic in New England, a foreigner from some more sultry & expansive climate. She is, I suppose, the earliest reader & lover of Goethe, in this country, and nobody here knows him so well. Her love too of whatever is good in French & especially in Italian genius, give her the best title to travel. In short, she is our citizen of the world by quite special diploma."
    --Thomas Carlyle

"America has produced no woman who in mental endowments and acquirements has surpassed Margaret Fuller."
    --Horace Greeley

"The Conversations were a 'vindication of woman's right to think.'"
    --Elizabeth Cady Stanton
 
"How characteristic are all the things told of Margaret on board, giving her only life-preserver to a sailor to seek for help, when a less sanguine or more selfish person would not have done [so] -- her refusing to part with her child when she could not have saved him...; her securing the money about her showed how much she felt the need of it -- One who had always been taken care of would not have done so when lives were in danger."
    --Caroline Sturgis Tappan

"There was ... a fate in her, and was in the struggle against this, that she wrought her greatest victories. I think her courage surpassed by no woman I have met. It made her life one of the revolutions, and brought her to the tragic end."
    --Bronson Alcott

"To her, I, at least, had hoped to confide the leadership of this movement. It can never be known if she would have accepted it...; she was, and still is a leader of thought; a position far more desirable than a leader of numbers."
    --Paulina Wright Davis, president, Woman's Rights Convention, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1850; the convention observed a moment of silence in her memory before proceeding

"She was not framed by nature for a mystic, a dreamer, or a bookworm ... but a career of mingled thought and action, such as she finally found."
    --Thomas Wentworth Higginson

"For as long as she lived, and afterward too, almost everyone who knew Fuller well groped for words when they tried to describe her; nearly all of them were compelled, sooner or later, to use the word 'force.'"
    --Joan von Mehren, biographer

That's a question I am asked all the time about history, and not just about a women's history trail.

The answer is that it can!

The educational advantages to a women's history trail are usually fairly obvious to people. Residents and visitors in your town learn a more balanced version of local history, girls in particular resonate to the inspiring role models found in women's history -- especially with those women who overcame challenging obstacles -- and people of all ages in your town, male and female, sit up and take notice when the entire community commits to creating a women's history trail.

That sends a powerful message!

I've seen it, I've done it, and it's inspiring.

But for a community to derive the MOST benefits from this kind of project -- including economic -- I believe in a public process that engages municipal and civic leaders, local businesses, and nonprofits from the beginning and throughout.

Too often these groups don't work together. But this is the kind of project that can bring everyone under the tent to everyone's benefit.

In my new book, 10 Easy Steps to Create a Women's History Trail in One Year, I follow this inclusive, public process approach because I know it works.

The book will be available from History Smiths on Friday, April 9, 2010 and I am so excited about the thought of having dozens more women's history trails established throughout the United States and beyond. Right now, in the U.S., there are only about 20! Shameful! We can do better, and my book lays it all out for you.

I also spell out the opportunities for everyone involved in the process to profit financially all the way through and after the trail is open.

I have already gone into detail on the economic benefits of a trail in the Special Report I have available on History Smiths' website -- for free! (Just sign up for it in the box provided.)

So please visit the page that describes my 10 Easy Steps book and think about how much a women's history trail can benefit your community.

Oh yes -- it's also tremendous fun, and you will learn stuff you never knew!

Women's history IS everywhere. Let's share the stories!   

Excerpted from the display written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith for the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial.


Revolutionary

Margaret Fuller arrived in Italy in March 1847, carrying secret letters from the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini and knowing she was heading into a turbulent political situation. What Mazzini and his supporters hoped to forge was a united Italian Republic starting with Rome, where the new Pope, Pius IX, seemed open to reform. The revolutionaries wanted to limit the Pope's power to spiritual matters; secular matters, like governance, should be left to democratically elected officials. With Rome as the head of a new republic, the rest of the independent states comprising Italy could join and form one democratic nation. Austrian and French forces, in particular, had other ideas. So did the Pope, whom Fuller took on in one of her more gutsy dispatches to the New-York Tribune, her employer.

Among Mazzini's supporters was the Marchese Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, the youngest son of an aristocratic Catholic family with ties to the Pope. Fuller fell in love with him, and gave birth to their child, Angelo Eugene Phillip Ossoli ("Nino") in 1848 in Reiti, where she had temporarily relocated for their safety. She returned to Rome as soon as she found caretakers for Nino, and resumed her work as the first woman foreign correspondent for a major newspaper to serve in wartime.

Fuller observed the Roman Revolution first-hand, managed a hospital, assisted her husband on the front lines, and began to write a modern history of the movement. In one of her last dispatches from Rome she wrote, "The New Era is no longer an embryo; it is born; it begins to walk--this very year sees its first giant steps, and can no longer mistake its features. Men have long been talking of a transition state--it is over--the power of positive, determinate efforts is begun." However, Fuller did not believe republican forms of government would take hold in Europe until the next century, and she was right.

The Ossolis (Fuller began to refer to herself as the Countess Ossoli and assured her friends they had married) escaped from Rome in 1850 as the revolution fell apart. Although she had a nightmare about the voyage and wrote to friends that she had a terrible sense of foreboding, the family eventually sailed for New York where Fuller knew she could find a publisher for her history.

It was an awful journey. The captain died of cholera on the way which Nino, her baby, also contracted. Before the steamer Elizabeth could reach its destination, and under the direction of a less experienced captain, a storm crossed its path, the ship ran aground, and eventually capsized just off Fire Island, New York. Some passengers were rescued, while others waited for help. Onlookers looted the items that washed ashore.

All three Ossolis perished at sea, along with Margaret's manuscript of the Roman Revolution. Only Nino's body was recovered, and he was buried in the Fuller family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a cenotaph in Margaret Fuller Ossoli's memory now stands.

In a plea to her American audience from Rome, Fuller had written, "I pray you do something; let [the revolution] not end in a mere cry of sentiment ... Do you owe no tithe to heaven for the privileges it has showered on you, for whose achievements so many here suffer and perish daily? Deserve to retain them by helping your fellow-men to acquire them ... Friends, countrymen, and lovers of virtue, lovers of freedom, lovers of truth!--be on the alert; rest not supine in your easier lives, but remember

'Mankind is one
And beats with one great heart'"

Quotes:

"I have wished to be natural and true, but the world was not in harmony with me--nothing came right for me. I think the spirit that governs the Universe must have in reserve for me a sphere where I can develop more freely, and be happier."
--Margaret Fuller

"[K]ings may find their thrones rather crumbling than tumbling; the priests may see the consecration wafer turn into bread to sustain the perishing millions even in their astonished hands. God grant it. Here lie my hopes now. I believed before I came to Europe in what is called Socialism, as the inevitable sequence to the tendencies and wants of the era, but I did not think these vast changes in modes of government, education and daily life, would be effected as rapidly as I now think they will, because they must. The world can no longer stand without them."
--Margaret Fuller, 1850

Excerpted from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial display, written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith.


Reformer

In Europe, where industrialization was more advanced than in the U.S., Fuller hoped to find successful models of communities and institutions to prevent the expansion of poverty back home. During this time of steamships, railroads, telegraphs, and booming emigration to American cities, Judith Mattson Bean and Joel Myerson explain, "She envisions American culture as receiving not only people but seeds of thought and expression from other nations." These "thoughts" could be cultural as well as social and political.

In Liverpool and Manchester, England, Fuller went to Mechanics Institutes where anyone (male or female) with 5 shillings could attend lectures, take courses, or see art exhibitions. In London, she reported on cultural and literary goings-on. In Paris, when she visited homes, hospitals, and day care centers for the sick children of the poor, she observed evening schools where boys were taught a trade. In her dispatches to the New-York Tribune, she recommended that America immediately adopt such measures.

But it was the urban poverty of the slums that affected Fuller most of all, and the clear need for reform. In a dispatch from France she wrote, "The need of some radical measures of reform is not less strongly felt in France than elsewhere, and the time will come before long when such will be imperatively demanded."  

She also wrote, "To themselves be woe, who have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, the convulsions and sobs of injured Humanity."
 
Two questions plagued Fuller's mind: What was her role in what she was witnessing? What was America's role?

As Joan von Mehren points out, after visiting Paris, "Every one of her columns now made some plea on behalf of its 'injured Humanity.'" While the initial purpose of Fuller's journey to Europe was "to seek useful ideas to transplant to the new world," she was transformed by her experience into "a radical vocation to communicate the monstrous suffering and human waste of the historical movement."

If there was any doubt in Fuller's mind about her stature as an international voice, there was no doubt in the minds of her new European friends. Fuller's reputation preceded her. They seemed to know she was destined to bridge the two continents and promote the reforms that were in their mutual interest. They embraced her.

In England, she renewed her acquaintance with social commentator Harriet Martineau, met the poet William Wordsworth, and the co-editors of the People's Journal Mary and William Howitt (whose modern marriage she had described in Woman in the Nineteenth Century). She also met Giuseppe Mazzini, the legendary exiled Italian revolutionary about whom Fuller had written for the Tribune. She was drawn to his cause and became his confidante and secret messenger.

In Paris, Fuller met George Sand and Pierre Leroux, who invited her to publish work in their periodical La Revue Indépendante. She was introduced to the exiled Polish revolutionary and poet Adam Mickiewicz, who became a kind of spiritual guide.

Fuller was in her element, filled with a sense of purpose and armed with the skills and mechanism (the Tribune) to make a difference. But the best was yet to come--Italy.

Did you know that there are only about 20 women's history trails in the U.S.?

Imagine if there were hundreds, or even thousands more. What messages would that send?

I am hosting a free teleconference call on Friday, March 26, 2010 at 4 pm EST to talk about how and why to create a women's heritage trail.

My special guest will be the historian Polly Welts Kaufman.

For details, and to sign up for the call, please visit my new website at History Smiths.

If you have trouble getting through to this website because it's new, go to Hurd Smith Communications or my Bonnie Hurd Smith website where there are links from the home page.

"See you" on the call!

Bonnie

Excerpted from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial display, written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith.


Public Voice

Horace Greeley put Margaret Fuller's essays on Page One of his reform-minded newspaper, the New-York Tribune. She signed them with the symbol of a star, or an asterisk. Greeley paid Fuller the same salary as a man's, gave her a place to live when she first arrived, and encouraged her to write with "force." Fuller thus became the first woman in America to head the literary department of a major newspaper.

Fuller reviewed books (American and foreign), periodicals, musical events, concerts, lectures, and art exhibits. She visited and wrote about New York's "benevolent" institutions--prisons, hospitals, almshouses, insane asylums, homes for the blind and deaf. Now in a position to influence popular culture and social policy through first-hand observations, her urge to tell the truth and exceptional writing talent brought her fully into the public arena.

Greeley saw her as "a philanthropist, preeminently a critic, a relentless destroyer of shams and outward traditions."

Fuller's social commentary included condemnations of the approaching war with Mexico, the annexation of Texas, and the expansion of slavery. As historians Judith Mattson Bean and Joel Myerson explain, "She realizes that a war would drastically reconfigure the nation's population and landscape, leaving a legacy of dispossession and ethnic conflict. Fuller's essays actively resist American imperialism with attempts to subvert racist American expansionist rhetoric ... [her] participation in this debate was significant for another reason: the war with Mexico played a critical role in her disillusionment with America ... she began to equate U.S. national policy with European despotism and imperialism."

America's national identity was in crisis in the 1840s. There were questions about American literary independence from Europe and the United States' responsibility to foreign revolutionaries. Bean and Myerson point out:

"In reviewing contemporary American literature, Fuller practices a democratic criticism that challenges writers to uphold ideals of liberty and equality. Her political essays also argue that America's principles of liberty and equality are endangered by American materialism, greed, and the desire for continental domination. She directs attention to the relation of dominant American society to the other, contending that American society is founded upon tolerance and upon recognition of universal human rights rather than domination by force."

In 1846, learning that her friends Marcus and Rebecca Spring would be traveling to Europe to observe new and effective social institutions, Fuller and Horace Greeley decided she should go as well and send dispatches to the Tribune from the cities, towns, and countries she visited.

Before she left New York, Margaret wrote to her brother Richard, "I have now a position when if I can devot[e] myself entirely to use its occasions, a noble career is yet before me ... I want that my friends should wish me now to act in my public career."

Quotes:

"In cities and small towns throughout New England, New York, the Great Lakes, and the Ohio Valley, farmers, mechanics, and small merchants read the weekly aloud to their families, loaned it to neighbors, and organized 'Tribune Clubs' to discuss its latest news and pronouncement on national and international affairs. 'The Tribune comes next to the Bible all through the West,' its roving reporter Bayard Taylor would soon brag to his boss, and considering the multiple times each copy was read and its articles reprinted in other newspapers, Taylor's boast was almost an understatement."
--Charles Capper

"Texas annexed, and more annexations in store; Slavery perpetuated, as the most striking new feature of these movements. Such are the fruits of American love of liberty! Mormons murdered and driven out, as an expression of American freedom of conscience. Cassius Clay's paper expelled from Kentucky; that is American freedom of the press. And all these deeds defended on the true Russian grounds: 'We (the stronger) know what you (the weaker) ought to do and be, and it shall be so.'"
--Margaret Fuller, 1845

Excerpted from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial display, written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith.

Emerging Voice

In 1840, when Margaret Fuller agreed to serve as the first editor of the Dial at Ralph Waldo Emerson's request, she propelled herself even further into the public eye. While Fuller shunned the "Transcendentalist" label for herself, the Dial provided a vehicle for Transcendentalists to explain and defend themselves from criticism and misinterpretation. The Dial served as a forum for new authors and new ideas. Fuller saw the publication as "a perfectly free organ ... for the expression of individual thought and character, [one that would] not aim at leading public opinion, but at stimulating each man to think for himself."

Fuller solicited work from such writers (and friends) as Bronson Alcott, Frederic Henry Hedge, Caroline Sturgis, Ellery Channing, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Peabody, George and Sophia Ripley, and, of course, Emerson. She also provided her own articles on literary and cultural criticism and biography. Fuller's 1841 article on Goethe brought her acclaim as a leader in American cultural thought, and perhaps prompted her first visit to Brook Farm, the Utopian Transcendentalist community in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, founded by the Ripleys.

One of the key areas where Transcendentalists and other reformers clashed was on the subject of social and political change. Should reform happen within the individual or by tackling institutions and taking radical action? At the time, Fuller shied away from joining any particular group, preferring to examine many sides. But her two-year stint as editor of the Dial set her on a path toward radicalism and shaping public opinion.

Due to the financial instability of the publication Fuller never received her promised payment for being editor, so in 1842 she resigned. Emerson told her, "You have played martyr a little too long alone: let there be rotation in martyrdom!" and she gratefully turned over the editorship of the Dial to him. Fuller spent time that summer traveling with friends in New England. In Boston, she continued her language classes and Conversations, which became increasingly political.

In an 1843 edition of the Dial, Emerson published the essay that would initiate the next phase of Fuller's public life.  In "The Great Lawsuit: Man vs. Men and Woman vs. Women," she held up the egalitarian ideals of the American Revolution. Fuller pointed out that while these ideals did not yet apply to women, African Americans, and Native Americans, Americans had a "special mission" to strive toward a just social system -- and to assist others in the world who were initiating their own revolutions. Human freedom was a right, she asserted.

Fuller also threw out the ideology of "separate spheres" for women and men, instead addressing the conflicts between what was "male" and what was "female" within each person. She looked at gender roles in male and female friendships, and the laws and customs associated with marriage (subjects she also examined in her personal life as a single woman with male friends and married friends). She boldly exposed patriarchy and its effects.

Fuller's groundbreaking essay caught the attention of another outspoken literary reformer -- Horace Greeley, the publisher of the progressive New-York Tribune. He printed an excerpt of "The Great Lawsuit" in his newspaper in 1843.

Meanwhile, Fuller traveled to what was then considered the "western frontier" (Illinois and Wisconsin) with James Freeman Clarke, his sister, Sarah, an artist, and their mother, Rebecca, where she wanted to experience the American wilderness. She hoped to find instances of socially progressive communities far away from the East. Instead, what caught her attention were the consequences of the displacement of native peoples and the struggles of the settlers, especially the women, to survive difficult conditions.

Fuller saw the disparity between the promise of America and the reality of America, and the result was her 1844 book Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 -- an honest, first-hand account of conditions out west and a condemnation of U.S. policy. Biographer Charles Capper explains that she "[put] the region on the national literary and intellectual map and attract[ed] a national audience."

Summer on the Lakes was the first time Fuller used her own name in her work; the research she completed at Harvard made her the first woman to use Harvard's library (in Gore Hall).

Once again, Margaret's boldness caught the attention of Horace Greeley. He offered her a job in New York.

Excerpted from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial display, written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith.


Teaching and Self-education

Margaret Fuller's teaching career began at home, where she was responsible for the early education of her younger siblings. In Groton, she began earning money by adding neighborhood children to her home-based classroom.

While in Groton, Fuller also began writing for publications. Her first article of literary criticism (an emerging field in America), appeared in 1834 in her friend George Bancroft's Boston Daily Advertiser. She wrote literary and dramatic criticism, and translated Goethe for James Freeman Clarke's Western Messenger.

Fuller began to understand teaching young people and publishing articles as part of her larger role in life as a public educator. As Joan von Mehren explains, "Teaching was natural to her, and she would, in fact, never cease being a teacher in one guise or another."

When their father died suddenly in 1835, Margaret wrote to her brother Richard, "Nothing sustains me now but the thought that God ... must have some good for me to do." She was considered the de facto head of her family now, and their finances were meager. Fuller needed paid work, and an opportunity surfaced the following year in Concord, Massachusetts. There, during her first visit to Ralph Waldo Emerson's home, she met Bronson Alcott whose innovative Temple School in Boston would soon be without a teacher due to Elizabeth Peabody's resignation.

While Fuller waited for Alcott's job offer, she decided to move to Boston to start language and literature classes for women in German, Italian, and French. Before she left Concord, Emerson "kindly" identified "lapses" in her education. He steered Fuller toward the German and British philosophers and writers she would have studied if she had been able to attend college.

Fuller's time at the Temple School was short due to Alcott's controversial methods and the eventual closing of his school, but while there, she taught Latin, French, Italian, and kept records of the students' "conversation classes." In 1837, once again in need of work, Fuller accepted a well-paid position at Hiram Fuller's Greene Street School in Providence, Rhode Island, where she was put in charge of 60 students. She taught Latin, composition, elocution, history, natural philosophy, ethics, and the New Testament. Fuller's students described her as "strict and demanding, witty and authoritarian, at times unreasonable but always formidable, challenging, and impressive." Students were drawn to the school because of Fuller's reputation.

In the evenings, Fuller taught German language classes for women and men and worked on a biography of Goethe. She joined the intellectual Coliseum Club where she delivered her first public speech on "the sorry relation of women to society."

Earlier, during a visit to Concord, Fuller participated in gatherings of the "Transcendentalist Club"--the first time women were allowed as members in a "major male intellectual society," according to biographer Charles Capper. Before leaving Providence due to her failing health, Fuller observed, "I am not without my dreams and hopes as to the education of women."

Returning to Boston, Fuller made plans to hold what she called "Conversations" for women at Elizabeth Peabody's bookstore on West Street. Her initial purpose was not at all political. Instead, Fuller was interested in exploring two fundamental questions: What were we born to do? How shall we do it? These were questions "which so few ever propose to themselves 'til their best years are gone by." At the very least, she hoped to provide "a point of union to well-educated and thinking women" where they could satisfy their "wish for some such means of stimulus and cheer, and ... for a place where they could state their doubts and difficulties with hope of gaining aid from the experience or aspirations of others."   

Margaret Fuller's lucrative Conversations continued for five years and attracted approximately 200 students. Among them were some of the most prominent women intellects, authors, and reformers in New England including Julia Ward Howe, Lydia Maria Child, and Ednah Dow Cheney. Eventually, given the heightened political activity in Boston on the subjects of slavery and women's rights, Fuller's Conversations took a decidedly political turn.

Excerpted from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial display, written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith.


Foundations

Sarah Margaret Fuller, born on May 23, 2010  in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the oldest child of Timothy Fuller, a Harvard-educated attorney, and Margarett Crane Fuller. With the death of an infant sister, young Margaret was an only child for several years and the center of her father's attention in particular.

Timothy Fuller planned a rigorous course of study for his daughter. "To excel in all things should be your constant aim," he told her. "Mediocrity is obscurity."

By the time Margaret was 3 1/2 years old, Timothy was teaching her how to read and write; at 4 1/2, he taught her arithmetic; just before the age of 5, she learned English and Latin grammar. Even when Timothy Fuller was elected to the U.S. Congress and spent many months in Washington, D.C., he directed Margaret's studies by mail. Margaret also read voraciously: political philosophy, great European authors and playwrights, ancient and recent history, travel, biography, and even novels -- much to her father's consternation.

When Timothy Fuller was at home, father and daughter conversed in the evenings about what she was learning. "In the process," biographer Joan von Mehren explains, "Margaret developed a well-stored mind, a remarkable facility with the spoken word and foreign languages, and the exhilarating sense that she was very alive under tension."

Margaret's father stressed analytical skills, logic, and "the correct use of language," according to von Mehren. Timothy Fuller's goal was to have his daughter develop "a secure and favored place in an ordered republican society" that was consistent with his Enlightenment values.

At age 9, Margaret attended the Cambridge Port Private Grammar School ("The Port School") whose master was a Harvard graduate. By age 10, she had command of the standard classics in translation and was beginning to learn French. She was known as the "smart one," according to classmate Oliver Wendell Holmes. The following year, Margaret attended Dr. Park's Boston Lyceum for Young Ladies where she was ridiculed for her "country ways." She was now studying Italian, French, and geography, and attending dancing school.

Fearing their daughter's potential "unmarriageability," the Fullers sent Margaret for a brief time to Susan Prescott's more traditional Young Ladies' Seminary in rural Groton, Massachusetts. But she soon returned to The Port School to study Greek and Latin. Eventually, at the age of 15 and with her father's assistance, Margaret Fuller created her own course of self-study, which included lessons with the author Lydia Maria Francis (later, Child).

Margaret became friends with a group of young Harvard students who were caught up in a heady time of intellectual, literary, and theological activity at the college. German philosophy, literature, and poetry were the "craze," and many of these young men (James Freeman Clarke, Frederic Henry Hedge, William Ellery Channing) were preparing for leadership roles in the Unitarian church. Margaret borrowed books from them, and invited them home for lively exchanges of ideas.

Like her Harvard friends, Margaret discovered the German philosopher and literary giant Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, regarded as a leading thinker by American Transcendentalists. In 1833, when the Fuller family moved to a farm in Groton, Massachusetts, Margaret felt terribly isolated from Cambridge and Boston, but she viewed her time there as her "graduate school" and began to study German in earnest.

Note: Some of these links take you to Wikipedia which provides helpful overviews, but you should always double check the facts.


Part 3, coming next Monday: Teaching and self-education

Over the next few weeks, I look forward to sharing excerpts with you from the display I just created on Margaret Fuller for her bicentennial celebration in 2010. What an inspiring woman she was. Fuller thought big, acted big, and changed the world -- all before she died in a shipwreck at the age of 40. Hers is a compelling story. Please read on, and enjoy!


Excerpted from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial display, written and designed by Bonnie Hurd Smith.


Introduction

Author, editor, journalist, literary critic, educator, friend of the Transcendentalists, social commentator, women's rights advocate, and political revolutionary, Margaret Fuller left an indelible mark on Western civilization during her short forty years.

Today we consider Margaret Fuller one of the guiding lights of the first wave of feminism. She helped educate the women of her day by leading a series of Conversations in which she empowered women to read, think, and discuss important issues of the day. She influenced generations to follow through her classroom teaching, groundbreaking writings, especially her landmark book Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and through her personal example of independence and courage.

Fuller's bold public voice began to emerge in New England, but in her work for the New-York Tribune, which she transplanted to Europe, Fuller's calls for liberty and equality for all people internationally established her as a transcontinental literary ambassador.

Among her accomplishments:

    •     First American to write a book about equality for women
    •     First woman foreign correspondent and first woman war correspondent
          to serve under combat conditions
    •     First woman journalist for Horace Greeley's New-York Tribune, and first
          woman literary editor of a major American newspaper
    •     First editor of the Dial, the Transcendentalist journal, making her the first
          woman in America to edit an intellectual publication  
    •     First woman literary critic who also set literary standards for American writers
    •     First woman to enter the Harvard College library to pursue research

Margaret Fuller matters because her all-encompassing, inspiring, and still unrealized vision--aimed at the future--challenges us to continue her work and honor her legacy.
_____________________________________________________________

From Woman in the Nineteenth Century:

"If you ask me what office women may fill; I will reply--any. I do not care what case you put; let them be sea-captains if you will ... We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to woman as freely as to man ... Can we wonder that many reformers think that measures are not likely to be taken in behalf of women, unless their wishes could be publicly represented by women?"


Part Two, coming next week: Foundations -- Fuller's early life and education.

My favorite example of the economic impact of a women's history trail happened during the summer of 2009 in Salem, Massachusetts. As the creator of the Salem Women's Heritage Trail, I was hired for the day to lead a tour group of women who were members of the Worcester (MA) Women's History Project. They rented a bus, paid me for my time, visited three (ticketed) attractions, had lunch, and shopped along the way. By the time they were ready to leave, they knew they had only scratched the surface. Their bus happened to be parked in front of a Salem hotel and I said, "You'll have to come back next year, stay at the hotel, and see more sites!" And I'm sure they will.

The economic impact of a women's history trail on a community is real, and all kinds of organizations stand to benefit. Historic sites and museums sell tickets, attract members, and enjoy incremental business in their shops. Retail stores and restaurants welcome new customers. Bus companies, tour guides, parking accommodations, and modes of public transportation make money.

But to be specific, during the process of creating a women's history trail when and where can you notice its economic impact?

I recently posted an article on my website that answers these questions, and also offers the following thoughts to contemplate:

If you think about it, historic sites are already "there." No one will be adding sites to Boston's Freedom Trail, for example, any time soon. Those places are, literally, set in stone.

Women's history trails, on the other hand, are a NEW history "product" that can be created and marketed to generate income for hundreds of nonprofits and local businesses. That's heady stuff to contemplate!

My personal vision? At least one women's history trail in every state - as a start!

As I'm sure many Simmons people know, there is one in Boston and Simmons is included in the walks that discuss the Prince Retail Program and the School of Social Work.

I can't think of a more successful "history business" than Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. The site of Henry David Thoreau's experiment in deliberate and simplified living, Walden draws visitors from all over the world each year. During my most recent visit last fall, I encountered people from India, Russia, England, Canada, and various parts of America -- all of them drawn to the story.

There is something about what Thoreau did and what he stood for that makes his rural retreat a hallowed place. Yes, trains go by and some beach goers make noise, but a walk around the whole pond, including down to Thoreau's secluded cabin site, is a walk worth making. The sounds, smells, and sites of the Concord woods -- you still "get it."

Today's Boston Globe reported the invasion of unwanted guests at Walden -- invasive species and nonnative plants that are "more adept than native species at responding to earlier spring thaws and warmer temperatures by changing when they flower."

The scientists who are studying the impact of climate change at Walden are relying on Thoreau's "observations" on plant life from the time he spent there from July 1845 to September 1847.

What a wonderful blending of history, science, and environmental study and caretaking!

Here's to naturalists then and now, and to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation that takes care of Walden today. It's a must-see, must-experience.

Books alone will never do! (But you'll want to read Thoreau's Walden after you've been there.)