Woman in the Nineteenth Century

"You’re not alone in not knowing this book. One of the great oversights that we make when we talk about classical American philosophy is not noticing how brilliant Margaret Fuller was. She was certainly considered brilliant by her contemporaries. Henry David Thoreau , Ralph Waldo Emerson , and Edgar Allan Poe all considered her probably the most intelligent woman of their day. Woman in the Nineteenth Century was first published in The Dial as a series of articles known as ‘The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women.’ It is not an exaggeration to say that this was the American counterpart to Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. It was the first book of its kind in the United States. The argument that Fuller made involved extending Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’ by applying it to women. Fuller made the point that the individualism that Emerson discussed in ‘Self-Reliance,’ in ‘The American Scholar’ and in ‘The Divinity School Address’ has historically not been extended or available to women. She claimed that if good Transcendentalists were going to back individualism or the individualism of ‘Self-Reliance,’ then they should also support institutions that gave women the chance to exercise this freedom. And she did this in a couple of interesting ways. One was a type of Kantian move, which is to say that dignity applies to all human being with rational capacities. It has been described as a sentimental argument, because she was appealing to the sentiments of her readers to notice that the oppressive circumstances for women had gone on since history began. But her argument for equal consideration of interests is very tightly crafted. “Fighting oppression operates by way of getting out of a basement by steps. You can be further up or down in this basement, depending on how many vectors of oppression you face” She also made the point—and I think this is philosophically original—that with the abolitionism that was visible in the 1840s, especially around Boston, that if one defended the rights of African American slaves, and was willing make the claim about the freedoms that African Americans deserve, then this argument should also hold when it comes to women, both white women and black women. This is one of the first articulations of what today we call intersectionality. She pointed out, like many feminist theorists today, that fighting oppression operates by way of getting out of a basement by steps. You can be further up or down in this basement, depending on how many vectors of oppression you face, and fighting one form of oppression or fighting other forms of oppression. So, this is something that I think is very valuable in ‘The Great Lawsuit.’ Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . One very interesting part of ‘The Great Lawsuit’ is the tale that Fuller tells about a character by the name of Miranda, a tale that is largely autobiographical. Miranda is a woman who has a very supportive father in terms of educational practices—she’s given the best education—and she’s able, by virtue of this education, to become an intellectual success. This runs against the biological essentialism that would have governed much of nineteenth-century life. For Fuller, the differences in gender expression aren’t about about nature, but rather the opportunities one is afforded with, and the nurture that one is given. There are a couple of different reasons why it’s neglected, but I think primarily it is an issue of style: this type of writing is not particularly approachable for much contemporary analytic or continental feminism. Fuller wrote poetic philosophy, one that is shot through with various classical allusions, which would have resonated with her audience but, today, do not make much sense unless you start digging into the allusions. I think she relied on classical allusions even more than, say, Emerson, because she felt she needed to show that she had a respectable educational background; whereas Emerson (as a guy) didn’t have quite as much to prove. That’s true, and it certainly makes it hard for us to appreciate it now. There is also the small matter that she died before her time. She went to Italy, fell in love, and supported the Italian Revolution. On her way back to the States, at the tender age of forty, in 1850, the ship she was sailing in sank off the coast of New York City. Had she lived longer, she probably would have had more influence. Emerson traced Transcendentalism back to a particular aspect of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy: Kant’s turn inward to investigate the categories of experience. This turn inward—to think about the way that our experience gives us the world and the relation between the world and our subjective experience—is a move that’s distinctive for all Transcendentalists. More generally, there are a number of themes in Transcendentalism. One is finding oneself in nature. This is the Romantic idea that who I am most essentially can be discovered not in the conventions of society, but in some sort of communion with nature, by getting back to nature and realising that you are a part of nature. We see that in Walden , when Thoreau says ‘I love the wild not less than the good,’ and how woodchoppers, fishers, and hunters regard themselves as part of nature, not apart from nature. That’s something that I think most Transcendentalists hold onto. There’s also deep democratic sentiment in Transcendentalism. You can think of it as the democratisation of genius, almost, or the democratisation of the aesthetic. Most Transcendentalists were interested in seeing the genius that individuals have across the board, not in seeing genius as something particularly special. Or, rather it is special but so are we all. Those are a couple of different elements in Transcendentalism. That democratic ethos then translates into certain social and political ideals. Abolitionism is oftentimes associated with Transcendentalism—accurately, in my view—because it entails realising that we have obligations to people who are oppressed, because they are not able to exercise their self-reliance. Yes. Thoreau and Emerson were basically neighbours throughout life. Fuller travelled and lived in a variety of places, but she was always close by, at least in spirit."