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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I have putting off writing for the last two days in the hope that the second operation on H's eyes would be over -- -- But these good for nothing surgeons have kept us in hot-water since last Thursday putting it off from day to day on some pretext or other I dont beleive a butcher -- jailer -- or common hangman gets his heart so hardened as a Doctor -- as most Doctors -- -- I am glad that I knew such a man as Dr Jones -- or our good Dr James -- or Watts -- there are natures that fire melts but will not harden -- Harry, as Jane says, is a pattern for Job 1 himself, but still he is severely tried, and tho he makes very light of the operation it cant be pleasant to sit for a week thinking of that crooked knife wire & knife going into your eye-ball -- ! -- -- The eye sight of the
Walsh writes from Phila, that he regrets extremely Harry didnot go there -- that Physic prefers the quick process -- depressing the cataract at once -- and I think it most probable Harry will try that next time -- -- I am sure this service will exhaust his stock of patience -- The weather has been extremely mild here during this month -- There has been scarcely a night that the water has
Wednesday Eve'g 28 -- -- I purposely delayed my letter till today in The operation was gone thro' this morng -- -- It was a little longer than before as the Doctors were anxious to cut away the substance more, and I think he felt it more -- but it is really, for the object to be attained, a very small affair -- There seems to be no threatening of inflammation -- and Stevens pronounces with perfect confidence on final success -- The anxious meeting is at this moment in his room -- though Jane and I have just been laying our heads together to request them to adjourn down stairs, lest he should get too much excited -- The manifestation of kind feelings -- the thronging of friends to your house -- and above all the sentiment of entire dependence on God, & gratitude to Him are
We have lately got up (I dont know but I have mentioned it before) a very pleasant little reading party, where we are all teachers and all critics -- we meet once a week, at Mrs Schuylers -- Ware's, Russells & the two Sedgwicks 2 -- We have voted in David Field -- and he plays schoolmaster as well as if he were born and bred to it -- He has his father's business driving way --
By the way -- the awakening! -- I hope that all our friends young and old 3
behave with the dignity that will be most honorable to themselves, and to their religion. I am well aware that the provocatives to ridicule are almost irresistible, and I doubt not that if I were among you I should sin greatly in this way -- but I hope better things of you -- that you will oppose seriousness to fanaticism, and not only feel but [manifest?] that there is heart work in your
I see Morgan but seldom -- when I do he is always interesting -- I beleive he is doing extremely well in the way of teaching -- -- Our new church is thriving -- They have new pew holders -- Bruen in his church in the
I have this Eve'g got hold of a new work of Miss Francis' as is said -- It is not avowedly -- It is a romance of one volume called the 'rivals of Acadia' 3 -- the former name of Nova Scotia -- it is founded on historical events of the year 1643 -- and as far as I have read -- the first 50 pages is respectable not striking -- --
Now my dear Charles I always wish to be on honor with you and
I suppose you see by the papers what grand progress the Greeks are making in their subscription The New Yorkers will dance and sing for charity! Spring has lately preached 4 sermons from the text There are three that bear record in heaven!! -- among other equally true remarks he said -- "Who fill our theatres and our ball-rooms? -- The Unitarians" -- -- Unluckily he has a renegade son on the stage -- Is it not strange that he should throw stones at those who dont live in glass-houses --
Matilda was much better when I last saw her -- -- indeed almost as well as usual -- My dear brother and Sister
rs L
Elizth is pretty well -- tho' excessively thin -- Her children are as lovely as possible --
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I
Wax blot and tears; smearing; the bottom of pages 3 and 4 (opposite sides of the same sheet of paper) is torn or cut away; no closing or signature.
Charles Sedgwick Esqre/ Lenox/Masstts
N Y Feb 1829
N Y -- Feb -- 1829
The righteous but much-tested biblical character of the Book of Job.
Probably Sedgwick and her brother Robert.
The author of the anonymously-published 1827 novel, The Rivals of Acadia, was Canadian/American Harriet Vaughan Foster, known today by her married name, Harriet Vaughan Cheney. Sedgwick notes that the author was reputedly "Miss Francis," the author Lydia Maria Francis Child.
The bottom edge of page 3/4 has been torn or cut away, thus leaving Sedgwick's communication at these two points suspended and eliminating her closing and signature.