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.
Online version 1.
Hold this space for succinct statements about editorial principles here and/or link to the website with more detailed editorial descriptions.
- Friendship
- Family Relations (Sedgwick Family)
- Health and Illness
- Self-reflection
- Religion
- Literature and History
- Domestic Life and Duties
- Travel and Touring, US
- Unitarianism
- Employees
- Gender Roles
r1831--
I thought when I left you my precious friend that the first moment after my arrival would be devoted to you -- But so it ever is I am the slave of present duties -- -- Perhaps I dignify the occupations that fill the passing hours with that favorite word of all the canters -- -- who thus hope to give a sop to the dog conscience -- The only
My dear Eliza I could not have beleived that the few hours I passed with you could have given me such store of delightful recollections -- Every little leaf & fibre of all the sweet flowers you had sown in my memory is refreshed & invigorated & lifts its head & sends forth a fragrance from an immortal source -- -- I have thought much of your delightful plan for me this winter -- but I must only think of it as another proof of my dear friends' love -- for in 2 this I associate you all -- even dear little Charley -- --
I found Harry much more unwell on my return -- His limbs on one side are so much affected that he cannot walk with safety without assistance -- His mind is in a natural state, but my dear Eliza there can hardly be a sadder spectacle than such a mind fretting in its prison house --
We had flattered ourselves that he would be spared any farther aggravation of his afflictions & it certainly is one of the hardest cases for submission & trust -- He has never in all the strange modifications of his religious faith lost his confidence in the goodness of the Deity -- God grant that may still be sustained amidst his growing impatience of life -- It is a rock in the tempest beaten waves -- He has long proposed a journey to Philadelphia at this time, & he cannot be persuaded to relinquish
Charles has just come for me to go to Lenox to see my dear Kate who is sick so I must hastily say Farewell --
I suppose you are just getting into your house --
My love to your husband -- Is not his address to be published? -- How much I thot of you all on that memorable Saturday! -- remember me affy to the Sisters & kiss Charley for me --
Heaven bless him & you my dearest Eliza
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I
Wax blot and tears.
Mrs Follen/Care of the Revd C Follen/Cambridge/Masstts/To be thrown into/the P Office in Boston --
1831 is written in the upper right corner of page 1.
Several numbers are arranged in the form of additions on page 4.
We have been unable to locate such an observation by Madame de Stael. On the subject of duty and nobility, she is oft cited for "Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty."