Margaret Fuller Was Born in Boston and Essay

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Margaret Fuller was born in Boston and pushed hard at a young age by a father who, when she was just four years old, recognized her high level of intelligence and sought to instill in her a thirst for knowledge. Her father, Timothy Fuller, a Unitarian rationalist, treated her "…not as a plaything, but as a living mind," she explained (Gornick, 2012, p. 2). While it is true she later wrote at length about how much she appreciated being induced by her intellectual father to study literature, philosophy and to learn languages even before her teens, she reportedly suffered "lifelong migraines, permanent insomnia and impaired eyesight" as a result of the intensity of the pedagogic pressure from her father (Gornick, p. 2). She also had a constant worry that "her intellectual output was insufficient," Gornick writes in The Nation; this was ironic because she was such an intellectual powerhouse and so given to voicing her august opinions that some of America's greatest literary icons (Nathaniel Hawthorne, for example) could barely stand to be in the same room with her (Cornick, p. 2).

Fuller's arguments for equal treatment of women

In her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Fuller contributed to the emerging feminist movement by arguing that "…a good world could only be achieved" when women were fully recognized "as citizens in their own right" (Cornick, p. 3). Fairness in the world could only come, Fuller asserted, through the "…intellectual and spiritual elevation of each and every human being" -- and this intellectual / spiritual achievement for women could only be manifested through "…a wealth of literary, philosophical and historical references" (Cornick, p. 3). Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune, responded to her book by commenting that it was:

"The loftiest and most commanding assertion yet made of the right of Woman to be regarded and treated as an independent, ration, being entitled to an equal voice in framing and modifying the laws she is required to obey" (Cornick, 3-4).

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Meanwhile, a biography on Fuller published by the Unitarian Universalist Association reports that Woman in the Nineteenth Century was "her major gift to the times," a "manifesto for the women's rights movement" (UUA, 2002, p. 4). In the book Fuller depicted the "…oppression of the female sex through history and advocated equal status for women" (UUA, p. 4). Fuller, who was raised a Unitarian, attended the Unitarian church headed by antislavery activist Rev. Edward B. Hall and in 1842 she adopted her faith in Christianity to "her own needs" (UUA, p. 4). She justified her faith by writing that Christianity should include "the deep consciousness of a Moses with the holy love and purity of Jesus"; but she added that the "blue sky" preached to her "…better than any brother" (UUA, p. 4).

While in Italy in 1848, Fuller, who was sending essays back to New York to Greeley's publication, became "an ardent supporter" of the revolution in Italy. She advocated in that regard that "…revolution meant freedom and human rights for the laboring class and for women" (UUA, p.….....

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