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Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau Although we think of sexism as a situation that has been dealt with, we still have much to learn. A key turning point in discrimination against women was the courageous actions of Harriet Martineau. Harriet was born in 1802, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Martineau. She grew up in a home without any encouragement for her education. Instead she was trained, as all other women in her life, to be a homemaker. However this did not stop her efforts to pursue her dream. Even though she risked exile from her family, friends, and society at whole, Harriet continued her studies of women’s lesser role in the social aspects of life. Harriet described her childhood as a “burdensome experience” (Household Education, 1849). Her mother held a strong sense of tyranny in their home due to her upbringing, believing in a more traditional way of child rearing. Men went to college and women stayed at home, her mother believed. Harriet felt she was trapped in this matriarchal way of life, until her father Thomas died sometime during the 1820’s. For her this was a chance to escape from her mother and an unfulfilling life. Because of the financial difficulties in their family now, she could finally be free from that middle class prison and was able to move out on her own. Now with the burden of her family difficulties lifted from her shoulders she was able to learn more about herself and follow her dream of being a writer. “I have determined that my chief subordinate object in life shall henceforth be the cultivation of my intellectual powers, with a view to the instruction of others by my writings (http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/martineau.html),” she said. With an aspiring attitude she started writing. Initially, her writings were more religious in nature because of her belief in Unitarianism. Later however, she adapted Necessarianism, which allowed her to use a more social scientific viewpoint. This lead to even greater success in her writing. Her first work was published anonymously in 1823 in the Unitarian Journal called Monthly Repository. This had a huge impact among readers and was a profound start to her career. Later when her brother James Martineau found out that she was the author he said, “now dear, leave it to the other women to make skirts and darn stockings, and you devote yourself to this(http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wmartineau.htm).” Like James, many other people became quickly at ease with the idea of a woman being Soon after she joined a circle of writers and theologians in London. Working with such famous people as: Charles Babbage, Thomas Carlyle, George Eliot, Florence Nightingale, Charles Dickens, Thomas Malthaus, William Wodsworth, Charlotte Bronte, and Charles Darwin. As she kept writing she became more respected and her popularity Harriet first got a large reading public when she popularized classical economics with a series of anecdotes and short stories. She especially focused on the ideas of Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo: Illustrations of Political Economy, 25 vol. (1832-34), Poor Laws and Paupers Illustraed, 10 vol. (1833-34), and Illustrations of Taxation, 5 vol. (1834). After she visited the United States she wrote Society in America (1837), which is her most popular writing used amongst sociologists today, and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838). She also wrote How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838), which was another admired writing of hers. “Her writings in How to Observe Morals and Manners offered a positivist solution to the correspondence problem between intersubjectivity, verifiable observables, and unobservable theoretical issues (Hill, http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/martineau.html).” After this she felt she needed to approach the subject of the Abolition Movement and repudiated laissez-faire economics favoring a more utopian society. After this new- found knowledge she was inspired to study more on the religious side to our social and economic world. She took a trip to the middle east (1846) where she studied and became progressively skeptical of religious beliefs. She also began to doubt her own belief in Unitarianism. This lead her to write her most popular historical work The History of the Thirty years’ Peace, A.D. 1816-1846 (1849). Her continuing none belief in religion led to the writing of her next book Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development (1851), which created upheaval because of it’s complete rejection of religious beliefs. After the publication of this book her friendship with her brother James ended as he was now a leading figure in the Unitarian Church. In 1852 Harriet joined a newspaper company called the Daily News. Over the next sixteen years she wrote over 1600 articles about the different kinds of oppression against women and why it was time for change. Then the 1860’s some acts began called the Contagious Diseases which allowed police to obtain any women they thought might be a prostitute and submit them to tests for venereal diseases. Harriet disagreed with this act and began the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act. She did not continue heading up this act, but was know as the creator of it. Throughout Harriet’s life she had struggled with health problems and in the later years of her life those problems worsened. She grew up without the ability to taste or smell she said and although it could not be proven medically doctors said it may have been psychological due to her upbringing. From 1839-1844 she had been forced to live as a complete invalid worsening her health even more. By 1870s she had to slow down her activity in her studies of sociology. And finally in 1876 Harriet died of bronchitis. Twenty years before that she had already written her obituary. People said it was in her usual fashion to be so prepared. She saw the human race, as she believed, advancing under the law of progress; she enjoyed her share of the experience, and had no ambition for a larger endowment, or reluctance or anxiety about leaving the enjoyment of Hill, Michael R. Women In Sociology "Harriet Martineau" p. 289-297 Chapman, Maria Westman ed. Harriet Martineau's Autobiography Boston, James Pichanick, Valerie K. Harriet Martineau, The Woman and Her Work, 1802-76: University of Michigan Press, 1980. Kellor, Frances. “Harriet Martineau.” Women’s Intellectual Contributions to the Study Of Mind and Society. http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/martineau.html http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/martineau.html Encyclopćdia Britannica, Inc.15th edition. Chicago/ Auckland/Geneva/London/Madrid/Manila/Paris/Rome/Seoul/Sydney/Tokyo/Tor-onto, 1974-89. Bibliography:

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