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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thMarch -- 1828 -- --
I thank you from my heart for your kind letter Beside the actual present pleasure it gave me, it produced some delightful reminiscences -- -- stirred the embers -- which now & then, you know, require a little poke in order that they may send forth a glow which shall show that the position of the affections is as it was -- -- I lamented that I didnot see your friend -- -- He didnot leave his address & was in town some days before we ascertained where he stayed & then Robt didnot call on him till the very day before he left Town -- This must seem to you gross negligence, but the truth is that Robt is so completely overwhelmed with business that he is compelled to forego almost every social duty & pleasure -- -- This is grievous to me -- It seems to me an abuse of life, but it is not easy to rectify it -- -- You become part & parcel of this great bustling City & you are driven on by the impetus that moves society -- -- I had a great curiosity to see this young Sculptor 1, the mind pays an involuntary homage to genius, & beside this instinct my interest was long ago excited by your's and your girls' admiration of him -- -- -- When I was last with you on Mount Vernon, one of his earliest productions was 2 on your table, & the young artist was frequently the subject of your remarks -- & there is something my dear Mrs Channing in your manner when you speak with interest that makes on my mind an indelible impression -- so there the young man's image has remained in my memory as for distinct & palpable as one of his own figures -- -- -- --
I hear that my friend Lucy has been among the most fashionable & admired of your belles this winter -- This is a hard ordeal for any girl to pass but Lucy's is a character that may be exposed to it with less danger than most others -- -- -- -- exuberant character requires the discipline of experience & could in no other way attain its destined perfection -- -- And I doubt if this kind of exercise is not necessary to the perfect developement of strength -- . . clouds will come & do their office, and then the plant that has escaped scorching or withering will be the more luxuriant for having had the full unobstructed sunshine -- . . I have felt a great deal of interest in Lucy's progress -- her natural ardent character is so clipped formal accurate young ladies, who seem 3 as exact illustrations of a system of education as if they had walked of some School maams manual -- -- -- Their march through life is nearly as safe as canal navigation -- & about as dull -- --
Your gratified me extremely with your kind mention of Eliza 2 -- -- Poor girl -- what a different experience is hers from Lucy's! -- -- Her conduct in very difficult circumstances has deserved approbation & confidence -- -- She is at the head of
I wish she might have the refreshment and reward of such a pleasure as a visit to Brooklyne -- & should it
"Nobody" says Susan L, "sits so lightly to the world as Mrs Russel" -- -- Not so with my friend Susan -- -- She & Thatcher still maintain their Utopian intercourse -- No woman can approach the vortex of sentiment without being drawn in, & she,
My Sister Susan has nearly finished her winter in town -- she has been as little conformed to the NYork world as any Gospeller could wish -- -- It is not very difficult to live in it & not be of it
Do you know Wm Emerson? -- He is a highly cultivated interesting young man -- -- poor fellow -- he frightened us half out of our wits last night, with fainting in the midst of his lecture at the Athenaeum -- -- The excessive heat of the room, & some previous indisposition I suspect occasioned it -- --
My best love to your girls -- Are we not to see Susan here this Spring -- It would give us all a great deal of pleasure --
My dear friend -- When is that visit to Stockbridge to be -- before our eyes are too dim to enjoy the vision? It is impossible for me to go to Boston this spring -- & it is hard to pass such a portion of life without seeing those that are among the dearest -- --
I have omitted to say any thing of Elizth -- & our Nursery population -- She has a sweet pretty -- healthy baby -- & is herself better than usual after such trials of her strength -- Her children are very interesting to less partial observers than an old Aunt
Will you remember me to your mother & Mrs Rogers
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I
Wax blot and tears; the PSs are written in the left and top margins, respectively, of page 1.
Mrs Susan Channing /Mount Vernon -- /Boston
Miss Sedgwick/New York -- March /15th 1828
Possibly Horatio Greenough, a sculptor in his 20s with Boston roots.
Likely her niece Catherine Eliza Pomeroy, called Eliza by the larger Sedgwick family. Eliza's mother and Sedgwick's sister Eliza Sedgwick Pomeroy had died six months earlier; 18-year-old Eliza apparently stepped in to care for her four younger siblings.
Probably a reference to the titular character of Bejamin Disraeli's 1826 novel, Vivian Grey.