Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s early letters document the intellectual development of a prolific woman writer from her childhood in the early national period through the 1813 death of her father Theodore Sedgwick, a Federalist member of Congress and Massachusetts supreme court judge. The youngest daughter in a family of seven siblings, Sedgwick practiced epistolary conventions in her early letters while introducing her lifelong theme of balancing personal and family expectations with the obligation to write. As Sedgwick reported in her later autobiography, she felt that she lacked a satisfactory formal education, but “these great deficiencies” were offset by the quality of her homelife. Her adolescent years were marked by her mother’s chronic ill health and death in 1807, her father’s remarriage in 1808, and her engagement with her siblings’ growing families throughout the period. By 1812, as a 22-year old republican woman reflecting on her social position, CMS felt the call of a “life dignified by usefulness” and compared her father’s contributions to her own potential: “You may benefit a Nation my dear Papa, & I may improve the condition of a fellow being” (1 Mar. 1812).
Letters from Sedgwick’s pre-publication adulthood demonstrate her intellectual and religious development as she grappled with events both personal and national. Her siblings became the central focus of her domestic life, and the Sedgwicks’ experiences with “the market of matrimony” (15 Aug. 1813) provide intriguing fodder for epistolary debate. Sedgwick rejected at least two marriage proposals in her twenties, one in 1812 and another in 1819. In the summer of 1821, she traveled to Niagara Falls and Montreal and began keeping a journal. As Sedgwick developed her authorial persona and worked on her first novel, her full-throated dedication to family, female relationships, and personal usefulness emerged as primary concerns. Sedgwick’s letters also become more philosophical, and her lifelong dedication to republican service and intellectual Unitarianism come into focus. Sedgwick explains her sense of vocation to her lifelong friend Eliza Cabot Follen: “my ministry must be one of watchfulness and steady devotion, and all those cares that love teaches, and can pay without being asked” (15 Nov 1822).
With her first novel A New-England Tale (1822), Sedgwick established herself as a professional writer, and she published four additional literary novels and more than 30 stories during this period. As a dedicated family woman, who also chose to be single and an author, she constructed domestic arrangements that complemented her writing career. She lived in the homes of her brothers and sisters-in-law in Stockbridge, Lenox, and New York City, deepening her relationships with her siblings as well as caring for the children and contributing to their education. Redwood, her second novel, received “much more praise and celebrity than [she] expected” (18 Oct. 1824). As her fame grew, she continued to find her spiritual home in Unitarianism, while her range of acquaintances expanded to include artists, politicians, reformers, educators, and intellectuals. Sedgwick began to travel more widely, visiting friends in Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia, and making extended trips to Washington DC and the South. As a measure of her celebrity, she was selected for inclusion in the National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans (1834), the only woman included other than Martha Washington. The period was also punctuated by “the real and bitter sorrows that cloud our life” (13 Mar. 1830), including the deaths of her sister Eliza, her childhood nurse Elizabeth Freeman, and her brother Harry.
As a member of the American literati, Sedgwick navigated transatlantic fame while experiencing personal loss at home. She pursued new avenues of benevolent activism in her life and writings. Letters from this period will be available soon.
Sedgwick’s engagement with mid-nineteenth-century reform movements informed her writings during this period. Her primary residences continued to be New York City and the Berkshires. She deepened her relationships with her niece Kate Minot and other members of the next generation of Sedgwicks. Letters from this era will be available at a future date.
During the Civil War period, Sedgwick grappled with issues of national importance alongside personal losses at home. She published her last book and final story and, after a medical crisis, resigned as Director of the New York Women’s Prison Association. In her final years, she resided with Kate Minot and her family near Boston. Letters from this era will be available at a future date.
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Your letter and Susans' bright note were received and read and re-read and laid up in my memory and heart and desk but have not been answered, and you would not blame me if you knew all but it would be too dull a story to tell -- but I have had pains and aches -- and laid my pen down when I could -- -- My very heart ached for you my beloved friend and Sister at your affliction in your Brother’s 1 illness -- I was sure his your soul gleamed from his eyes -- -- I trust ere this you have had good tidings from him and your tender anxieties are releived, and you are rejoicing -- even in the tears in which they were sown --
You have been overburthened this winter my dear friend, & with cares that press too heavily on your spirit -- But do not let your faith fail -- -- I am sure there are effects to be produced by suffering that can be produced in no other way -- -- The cloud and the rain must 2 bring to perfect the finest fruits -- and we shall look back on these periods of darkness, as we do on the hour of the storm after the sun comes forth, and the 'work of gladness' is all visible to the outward eye -- --
I cannot tell you what a blight Mr Gannett’s refusal has been to our new society -- I think he has done wrong -- you have all done wrong -- -- for have you not r C's conduct has been christian and apostolic -- like himself -- and I rejoice that it is known to be so -- He has endeared himself very much to us -- -- to us, I say 3 I mean to our people -- for I beleive nothing can change my opinions or feelings -- -- They feel his disinterestedness -- for
Thank Susan for her sweet note -- tell her it arrived most opportunely -- I was in the midst of a scene where I wanted just such a description of a person and manner as her inimitable one of the Gymneér Winthrop's parlor in Master Cradock’s form 2 -- -- It is even so dear Eliza -- and I have almost perpetrated another novel -- -- I know you have got to feel almost as much about it as I do -- and it is partly for this reason that I hate to speak to you 4 about it -- but I have got hardened -- worn -- -- I think this is much better than any thing that has gone before it -- but that is a bad sign -- the rickety children are always preferred -- --
Have you heard of poor Anthony Bleecker's death? -- Has Susan suitably mourned for him? -- poor fellow it seems to me as if something that drew all its nourishment from Earth had perished -- I
Eliza why don’t you write for money? It is a horrid carnal proposition to you -- but surely -- the author of your works and especially of that letter to Miss rs Hemans lost any of her womanly charm? -- Did Mrs Barbauld? Sewall is publishing some hymns for the schools -- I gave him yours -- Did I right? --
My best love to both the dear girls -- and to the Minots 3 -- and tell Susan to spare my poor friend the Doctor -- the German Dr -- As to the other Doctor -- Don’t quiz me Eliza -- -- Walinstein 4 has written to me to look over a Manuscript of his -- Is not it too bad Harry is still in the coal mine -- Jane as cheerful as ever -- her children of course all well --
Love to all
Robert & Elizabeth thank you and send their affte remembrance -- George’s head was turned in Boston -- He takes Miss M's engagement like a philosopher -- I am delighted with it
Insertion 1
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I
Wax blot and tears; no signature; later portions of the letter, including the PS, are cross-written on page 1; numerical calculations appear on page 4, probably unrelated to the letter contents.
Miss Eliza Lee Cabot/Care of Whitney & Cabot/Boston/Mr Briggs
Eliza Cabot Follen had several brothers; with no additional information, we cannot identify this individual.
A reference to Sedgwick's third novel and two of her characters, the historical figure Governor John Winthrop and the fictional Master Cradock.
The family of Sedgwick's friend Louisa Davis Minot.
Possibly Julius von Wallenstein, an acquaintance of several of Sedgwick's social contemporaries.