Born: 12 June 1802, United Kingdom
Died: 27 June 1876
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Harriet Martineau, an English author. She was descended from the Huguenots, a party of whom, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, settled in Norwich, England, where Harriet was born. She received a liberal education, and at an early age, being afflicted with a constantly increasing deafness, found her chief recreation in literary composition.
When her father died in 1826 he left his family destitute, and Harriet was compelled to rely upon her pen for support. Another sorrow at this time was the death of a young minister to whom she was engaged to be married. During these days of poverty she worked all day long with her needle, and at night with her pen, earning very little in both ways. For two years she lived on fifty pounds a year. She offered her sketches to editors of magazines and publishers, and they were scarcely looked at. Under the guise of fiction, she wrote books on religion, political economy, property, taxes, wealth, labor, and subjects pertaining to good citizenship.
After five years of struggle, during which she was compelled to solicit subscriptions for her own books, her talents at last won pronounced recognition, and she was besought on every side to make up various subjects for treatment.
She was now thirty years of age, and moved to London, where a life of fame and honor in the great world began. She met and enjoyed the most noted people of her time, among them Southey, Coleridge, Florence Nightingale, Charlotte Brontë, Sydney Smith, Landseer, Browning and Carlyle. Her books were read and talked about everywhere.
In 1834 she visited the United States, and met socially the most distinguished persons, among them Webster, Clay, Chief Justice Marshall, Garrison and Emerson. “She is the most continual talker I ever heard,” said Hawthorne, “it is like the babbling of a brook, and very lively and sensible too; and all the while she talks, she moves the bowl of her ear-trumpet from one auditor to another, so that it becomes an organ of intelligence and sympathy between her and yourself.”
She came to America for rest, and yet such a woman could not help studying our institutions and our people. On her return to England she wrote her work called Society in America, in which she showed a wonderful knowledge of our plan of government, our politics, our charities, indeed our whole country, with its unsolved problems. In this book, published in 1837, she advocated suffrage for women.
After a long illness, she bought, in 1845, two acres of land, and built her pretty graystone cottage, near Ambleside, on Lake Windermere, where she lived until her death. Here she met the aged poet Wordsworth, and here she wrote numerous books on many subjects, always with a clear head and a brave heart.
Her death caused mourning throughout England, and on this side of the ocean the sorrow was not less genuine and the honor not less universal.
A statue of her in white marble was unveiled in Boston in 1883, on which occasion in his last public speech, Wendell Phillips said: “In an epoch fertile of great genius among women, it may be said of Miss Martineau, that she was the peer of the noblest, and that her influence on the progress of the age was more than equal to that of all the others combined.”
From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
Harriet L. Martineau, English Authoress, 1802 – 1876 A.D.
Her ancestors were French and moved to England upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Her education was thorough as the times afforded for women. Hers was a strong character. While she had earnestness, courage, and sincerity, she was self-willed, self-opinionated, and self-conscious. She says of herself in her autobiography, that she was possessed of a temper “downright devilish” and had a “capacity for jealousy which was something frightful,” at the age of four years.
She was the sixth child in a household of eight. It was a busy, hard-working family. She was early afflicted with deafness, which increased with years and her mind was much shut in.
She found it necessary to do something which could not be performed apart from others, and turned to study, which became a passion. Her father lost his property and all were obliged to do something, not merely for an occupation but for a livelihood.
1825-26 was a time of speculations, collapses, and crashes. The bitter experiences of her family influenced her literary career. In this school of experience she learned to write on the burning questions of State, and especially political economy. Her experiences and vehement disposition made these works mightily trenchant.
Eminent statesmen asked her to write on almost every conceivable topic connected with legislation. Lord Brougham offered to collect evidence for her series on the Poor Laws and place it at her disposal. The Series was successful beyond her dreams. She tells her experience of a visit into the outer air for the first thorough holiday taken for nearly three years.
So she came to the United States on her completion of her English Political Tales. Everywhere she was graciously received, though her strong anti-slavery utterances detracted from her popularity in some places. But this is to her honor.
She was impatient and cared only to speak the truth with the greatest possible force.