Sarah Margaret Fuller, 1810-1850 By Crystal G. Burnette  Student, University of North Carolina At Pembroke  Sarah Margaret Fuller, Marchesa d'Ossoli was born May 23, 1810, to Timothy and Margaret Crane Fuller in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. Disappointed that his first-born was a girl, Fuller decided to give his daughter the same education that he would have given a son. He tutored and educated Margaret privately at home where she became affluent in Latin, French, Italian, Greek, and English literature. It has been said that she could comfortably discuss adult conversation by the time that she was six. After the death of her father in 1835, Margaret taught to support her family. She moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to teach in a private school. She returned to Boston and began to hold conversations for the elite women of Boston where topics ranged from social to economics issues that affected women. During this time, Margaret became involved with the Transcendentalist Symposium Club. This group of intellectuals held to the belief that "the knowledge of reality is arrived at intuitively rather than through objective  experience." She was its first woman member. She then took on the task of becoming the editor of the Transcendentalists' publication, The Dial. She contributed much of her own work and writings to the publication and was its editor from April 1840 until July 1842. After a tour of the northwestern frontier, Margaret's journal of the trip was published in 1844 and was called Summer on the Lakes. After reading the book, Horace Greely offered Margaret the position of literary critic and social commentator for the New York Daily Tribune. After being urged by many of her Transcendentalist friends not to accept the position, Margaret moved to New York and began her new job on December 1, 1844. She was the publication's first woman journalist. In September 1845,  Woman in the Nineteenth Century was published. This book is probably Margaret's most well known work. In August of 1846, she traveled to Europe and became the first foreign correspondent. She traveled to Rome in 1847 and became embroiled in the Italian Revolution. In Italy, she met and became lovers with Giovanni Angelo d'Ossoli, who was deeply involved in the revolution and who supported the faction. Shortly after becoming involved with d'Ossoli, Margaret discovered that she was pregnant. After giving birth to a son named Angelo, the couple were married in secret. During this time Margaret worked in government military hospital, giving help to those that were wounded. When Rome fell and the revolution was over, the French ordered that all who had supported the faction be out of Rome within twenty-four hours. Plans were made for the Ossolis to return to America. However, the trip was plagued and doomed to disaster from the very beginning. Outside of New York, the ship the Ossolis were aboard, Elizabeth, ran above ground in a storm and sank. The family perished. Fuller and her husband, along with her manuscript of the revolution, were never found. Their son's body washed up on shore after the storm.  Many of the themes of Margaret Fuller's revolved around women and how she saw that women were treated. Most of her work revolved around her travels and the things and events she felt effected and affected the lives of women. Much of her work and her feminist views helped to aid in the feminist movement. One her publications in The Dial is said to have changed her life and  that of many women. That essay was The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women. In that essay she called for the equality of women. As a literary critic, Margaret critiqued and gave her opinion of many authors of the time, some rather harshly. Some of those critiques appeared as essays in The Dial.  Bibliography American Literature on the Web  This world wide web site is most useful to any one wanting to research over 300 American authors, their work and any comments made on their work. This site is located in Japan. It gives an extensive list of Fuller's works and many comments and opinions of her work. The site links with many other sites, as well as many colleges and universities. Ask.com  This informative world wide web site allows you to ask about almost anything. By simply asking who Sarah Margaret Fuller was, the site searches the web and provides links to her works, literary critiques of her work, and her societies and home pages. "Sarah Margaret Fuller, Marchesa d'Ossoli." Dictionary of Literary Biography. 1978 ed.  This multivolumed series of books lists Sarah Fuller in many concepts and contexts such as her role in journalism and her role in New England literature. This work is very useful because it shows the different aspects and the effects of her writings and her critiques. "Sarah Margaret Fuller, d'Ossoli." Something About the Author. 1981 ed.  This gives a history of the life of Sarah Margaret Fuller and lists in chronological order the important events in her life. Study Questions Women in the Nineteenth Century  What was the importance of this book? What was its theme? Compare it to the work of some of the other Transcendentalists of the time. How did this book help the feminist movement?

Major Works Summer on the Lakes Women in the Nineteenth Century Papers in Literature and Art Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli Life Without and Life Within: Love Letters of Margaret Fuller Careers Teacher 1837-1839 Editor of The Dial 1840-1844 Literary critic and social commentator 1844-1846 Worker in the Hospital of the Fate Bene Fratelli Family Father, Timothy  Mother, Margaret Crane Eight Siblings Husband, Angelo d'Ossoli One son, Angelo Homes Cambridgeport, MA Providence, RI Groton, MA Jamaica Plain, MA New York City, NY Italy Chronology 1810: Born to Timothy and Margaret Crane Fuller 1823-1824: Leaves home to study at Misses Prescott's School in Groton, MA 1835: Timothy Fuller dies. Margaret assumes head of the family 1836-1837: Teacher in  Bronson Alcott's Temple School 1837-1839: Moves to Providence, RI, to teach at Hiram Fuller's Greene Street School 1839: Moves to Jamaica Plains and begins "Conversations." This will continue until 1844 1840-1842: Editor of the Transcendentalist publication, The Dial 1844: Summer on the Lakes is published and attracts the attention of Horace Greeley, who offers her the job of literary critic and social commentator for The New York Daily Tribune 1845: Woman in the Nineteenth Century is published 1846: Papers on Literature and Art is published. Travels to Europe and becomes foreign correspondent 1847: Travels to Rome and falls in love with Ossoli 1848: Son, Angelo, is born and the couple secretly marry 1849: husband and she become involved in the Italian Revolution. Works in military hospital 1850: Revolution falls. Supporters are forced out of Rome. Ossolis leave for America and die at sea.