Activism
Margaret Fuller wrote Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 to reflect on her journey through the Midwest. She offers a deep reflection on the social issues present, like women's rights and the treatment of Native Americans.1 She often utilized poetry to emphasize the struggles of Indigenous communities in the Midwest. Additionally, Fuller wrote the article, The Great Lawsuit, in 1843 to reflect on the limitations placed on women in the nineteenth century. She uses transcendentalist ideas of individual freedom to describe a future where men and women would be equals. Fuller critiques traditional gender roles and pushes for a change in society. This text is the foundation for her later published book Woman in the Nineteenth Century.2 These writings, along with many others, display Margaret Fuller’s commitment to being an activist.
Around the time when Fuller was beginning to gain popularity from her writing, Fuller went through internal conflict on whether she was a writer or not. She was struggling with the societal expectations that women should remain silent and submissive, and felt like her work was not being taken seriously. In Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, she wrote an essay titled, “Woman, or Artist?”, where she described her internal dilemma she was facing. “When I look at my papers, I feel as if I never had a thought that was worthy the attention of any but myself; and it is only when, on talking with people, I find I tell them what they did not know, that my confidence returns.”3 Fuller did gain the confidence to recognize that her work was important for women’s rights and social change. She proceeded to write her most well-known novel that impacted the way society looked at societal expectations in the 1840s.
One of Margaret Fuller's most famous works, Women in the Nineteenth Century, is a work of feminist activism that challenges the societal norms of her time. She argues that men and women should be treated equally and have equal opportunities for resources and education. She states that like men, women have the same capability of participating in education and life outside of domestic duties, she urges women to take control of their lives and to become educated and grow independently and spiritually.
Throughout the book's entirety, she challenges the deeply held belief that women's roles should be confined to the home. “There exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves.”4 She uses this phrase to demonstrate that women are often forced into marriage and the home without having another option, just like slaves are forced to live a life of servitude to their masters. Using this comparison, Fuller urges for a shift in how women are treated and pushes for equal rights between men and women. In this writing, she describes her hopes for the future and the feminist movement saying “We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to women as freely as to men.”5. Through this work she not only critiques the social order but she shows what a future of equality between the sexes can look like.
1Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little and Brown, 1844.: 383-422. Accessed Nov 8, 2024. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t5j960t46
2Fuller, Margaret. “The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women.” The Dial, 1843. Accessed Nov 8, 2024.
3Fuller, Margaret. “Woman, or Artist?” in R.F Fuller, ed. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, 295. Boston, Massachusetts: Sampson and company, 1857. Accessed November 8, 2024. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/abx9209.0001.001 .
4Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845, 22. Accessed November 6, 2024. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044012989893&seq=33.
5Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845, 26 Accessed November 6, 2024. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044012989893&seq=33.
By Hayley Szpynda, Riley McFarland, and Lola Boyer
