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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r1827
you would have laughed heartily at this moment if you had seen what a caricature of a blue 1 I presented, whittling a pen with the stump of a penknife -- It might indeed seem superfluous for me to seek by any appliances and means to mend my crow-tracks but you know the poorest workmen always require the best tools --
I have been waiting for Mrs Minot's return to answer your last kind letter & to assure you (an unnecessary assurance!) that your letters always produce a glow of animation -- an electrical excitement without its shock -- I was surprised by your remittance -- neither my friend nor myself wrote with any eye to fee or reward, nor with any other motive than to comply with your request -- -- However as I understand your work is on the genteel footing of the reviews it becomes a matter of propriety to retain it -- and a matter of feeling it is to express our gratitude to the able Editor whose gold can work alloy up to such a price -- Nothing could exceed my friend's astonishment at finding her talent turned to so substantial an account -- I have tried to persuade her to contribute
For myself my dear Miss 2 Francis, do not think me cold in your service or too indolent for the necessary effort -- -- I am really painfully distrustful of my powers to write for children -- I have never been at all satisfied with any thing I have done in that way -- -- -- I have been familiar with children all my life -- they are to me the most attractive objects in life -- their love is the fountain in which there is not a drop of bitter-water -- when I am with them I know how to address their minds & their affections -- but this is the preached word, and it is quite another affair to write for them -- I know it is shameful to shrink from a task on account of its difficulty, & there mingles with my interest in your labors something of the tenderness, and all the sympathy we feel for a younger Sister -- so that I am never without the purpose of expressing it in the way you request -- --
I was very much pleased with your friend Mrs Parker -- Our mutual interest in you brought us together at once -- I deeply regretted that you were not with her for I am sure you would have enjoyed the spectacle of Saratoga, & its complete relaxation -- -- relaxation of mind, for, as you are probably aware, there the body asserts its precedence in the order of creation -- -- The fine sense, naturalness, and cordiality of Mrs Parker were a refreshment and affected me much like meeting a luxuriant plant that I knew & loved at home plant thriving in a formal City-garden -- -- 3 I am glad Mr Reid saw you -- He was one of the
I confess I like now and then to forget the
I am impatient to see my adopted child 2 and have no fears of disappointment -- Do not think of sending the Ms -- there would be trouble and risk in this, and I would not defraud the public of a single day of pleasure by delaying its publication -- I regret extremely the trouble of which I have already been the involuntary occasion 4 but as I think nothing is written over without being improved I trust you will finally be indemnified for my accidental intrusion in your path -- I thank you for sending me your little book -- the principle illustrated is a most important and active one -- and the illustration touching -- -- 3
I am verging to a close without having half space enough to say what I would -- Are you reading Scott's Napn 4 -- I have appropriated every spare moment to it with infinite delight -- I rejoice to escape from the solemn stately march of the Muse of History -- to throw off the heavy armor of the olden time -- -- -- -- The Critics may find as many faults as they please -- I am content to see and hear the past and behold all again standing forth in the vivid lights of the Magician _____
My brother Harry was much gratified by your remembrance He has suffered much this Summer -- but
I have been grieved to hear that your sweet Sister 5 has been again sick & unfortunate -- How sad we feel it to be that our wishes are unavailing for the good and lovely -- perhaps they are not and they may
I hope you will cultivate Mrs Minot's acquaintance No one can know her without being better wiser and happier for it -- at least they ought to be --
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers III
Wax blot, tears, and creases; the last two brief paragraphs are cross-written in the left and upper margins of page 1. There is no close or signature.
Miss L. M. Francis./Cambridge./Massatts/o 6/ Mrs Wm Minot --
From Miss/Sedgwick
A "blue" or bluestocking, when used to describe a woman, means "having or affecting literary tastes, learned" (OED).
In this context, we believe that Sedgwick is referring to a literary work on which she has consulted, not an actual child.
Sedgwick never gives the title of Child's work-in-progress. It may have been a story meant for publication in her own periodical, The Juvenile Miscellany; an early draft of her 1829 children's book, The First Settlers of New-England: or, Conquest of the Pequods, Narragansets and Pokanokets: As Related by a Mother to Her Children, and Designed for the Instruction of Youth; or another work entirely.
A reference to Sir Walter Scott's The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (1827).
Abby Francis was Lydia Maria Child's sister-in-law. Given that Sedgwick always uses oblique language when referring to pregnancy and childbirth, we believe that she is here expressing condolences over either a lost pregnancy or an infant death.
Hilliard, Gray, & Co. were publishers and booksellers in Boston and Cambridge in 1827.