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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st1824
Private 1
you see what a precaution I have taken to give you the first reading of my reply to your secret communication for as my letters reach you via office I thought it expedient to hit upon some mode of saving my delicacy if yours was in no danger -- As to your information dearest Jeanie the more the merrier -- let them come in "troops and caravans" -- The world cannot have too much fruit from such a stock -- we cannot have too many copies of the beloved originals -- the more generous you are the more grateful we shall be -- As to your enquiries -- there never was a more poverty-stricken place in the article of nurses than this -- but there is one old Goody that is an excellent baby-tender, & I should old & deaf -- But I do not think you need to have any uneasiness -- we can in the hardest of times among us manage
This is new year's day dearest Jane -- and it brings to mind many sweet and some sad recollections that will forever be associated with you, and with this period -- -- -- I can truly say I have hardly been present in the body since the day dawned -- for you must know we rose at the dawn to attend a prayer meeting -- The villagers were all assembled -- Mr Field made one of his best prayers -- they sang one hymn -- and then he wished us all a happy new year & closed with a benediction that had more feeling and refinement in it than I thought him capable of -- I thought it a very rational way to begin the year -- -- I have been thinking of you dear Sister and those about you all day -- I have exchanged the tender greetings, the deeply felt wishes of the season with all those I love best among you -- Harry -- Robert Elizth -- your little ones -- my dear Lucy -- Eliza Egbert -- Eben, and all those kind friends that make up the sum of our social pleasures and interests -- -- This is a feeling time -- so much contrition -- gratitude -- and anxious looking forward -- God grant we may be grateful for the past, and prepared to endure the future -- --
You will have very merry holidays -- I am sorry Edward's visit falls during my absence -- do remember me to him, though he so little deserves it from me -- and tell 2 when I cease to like him on his own account -- I shall still be a well wisher for his Sister's sake -- --
The young people are to have a dance here to night and on twelvth night Susan gives them a celebration here in the finest possible -- we are to have a cake and ring -- a King & Queen, maids of honor, &c &c -- and all to conclude with a dance which is to be a secret from the children till the moment the fiddle
And now my dear Jeanie my fellow worker in all good things, do if you have any love for me prepare Harry for the downfall of pretensionary affair -- -- If I am not mistaken there are passages in it better than any thing in the other -- there is more story, & therefore it would be more read probably by the vulgar -- there is now and then a sensible observation & now & then a pretty trope -- but on the whole, it is strained and crude and prosing -- and bating Debby 3 -- who I will confess I think has quite a natural touch it is heavy -- dull -- uniform -- at least I am dreadfully afraid it is all this -- and fifty times I have been on the point of throwing it all in the fire -- and in some of my low-feeling days I have written & burnt & written again -- and got along pretty much like the celebrated cat going up the well --
It is very far from being done yet -- and when it is done I think it may be broken up into two or three tales with advantage -- I do not agree with H about the matter -- they will be lights in a dark place -- -- Now my dear Sister be faithful to me -- depend on it there is a sad disappointment in store for those who expect much -- I am not ambitious -- I have no right to be so -- and if my friends will only be resigned to my necessary humility -- I shall be content
Love, and a happy NewYear to all -- -- I rejoice dear Sister that your sweet children are such blessings to you -- all well here and at Lenox --
For mercy's sake do not excite an expectation about me --
Bryant is publishing some of the sweetest things in the Star 4 -- address to the Spaniards -- 'The Indian girl's lament! & a hymn have you seen them -- -- he is out of pocket for the publication of his poems -- Is it not a burning shame -- There must have been some sad mismanagement about it --
Insertion 1
The Bramin will be at rs Jonesswellingwill & H will be very glad to take you -- and if he does not rs Curtis
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Francis James Child Papers
Wax blot; text is added on the right edge of page 4, the middle margin between pages 2 and 3, upside down across the upper margin of page 1, and cross-written in the left margin of page 1. We have labeled these as insertions or post scripts as their content seems to dictate. No formal closing or signature.
Mrs H. D. Sedgwick -- --/Cedar Street/New-York --
Private
Jan. 1, 1824/Stockbridge
"Private" is written in larger, darker script below the dateline but above the letter content.
Sedgwick is speaking of her first novel, A New-England Tale (1822), in comparison with her second novel, Redwood, which she published later in 1824.
Debby Lenox is a character in Redwood.
We have not yet identified the Star, a publication to which Sedgwick refers.
According to the Poetry Foundation website, Bryant published a volume of his work called Poems in 1821, and, while it brought him fame, it was financially a failure.