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.
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- Gender Roles
- Health and Illness
- Authorship
- Economics
- Publication
- Social Life and Networks
- Class
- Childhood
- Food and Drink
- Charity
- Family Relations (Sedgwick Family)
- Work
- Shopping and Material Exchange
- Housewares and Furnishings
- Marriage
- Travel and Touring, US
- Morality and Ethics
Wonders you know never cease, and are seldom for any length of time suspended in this region of incidents -- Yesterday I was summoned down to see a lady who had arrived here with a large trunk and bandbox and who had requested permission of Susan to stay here as her business (which was with me) was of a nature that rendered it improper for her to go to a public house -- She brought me a very polite letter from Govr Clinton -- and another from a gentn in Poughie both recommending her in high terms and intreating my good offices for her -- The lady herself is apparently about 30, and extremely pretty -- As she had been blind, & her eyes are still almost useless, I came at once to the conclusion that I was to superintend an operation -- She was very much agitated, and I brought her up into my room, where after some preamble 2 of apologies and delicate embarrasments she disclosed to me her object, which was a book, to be composed of a narrative of her most eventful life, which it was at my option to make an honest biography of, or to work up into a fictitious narrative --
She has long entertained this project and has been flattered with the expectation that the avails of the book would support her for the rest of her life -- It seems that r Sampson -- and to Orville Holly to undertake the work and her friends now flattered me with the honor of considering me competent to the task -- --
The poor creature is quite destitute and unfortunate (I do not use the word Technically) to the last degree -- She has beauty and simplicity, and d your answer -- -- So you see my dear Harry Providence has sent me a real Cherubina 1 -- who is at this moment
Saturday Morning
Alas alas -- my vision has vanished -- When my poor damsel had proceeded thro' the intricate ways of her orphaned childhood and was just approaching her most romantic period which I beleive every horoscope casts within the teens, I suggested to her that the story of her life would implicate numbers of families now living and thriving & might produce consequences to her more unpleasant than her present poverty, which after all it was not certain that I could remove -- She hesitated for half a minute, and then said that my observation would induce her utterly to relinquish her project -- I could get nothing more from her -- at every attempt to resume her story, she cried so much as to be obliged to lie down -- and so after being closetted with me two days and two nights -- the poor disconsolate heroine took her departure in the stage Coach, bound for a Scotch ladys -- a grand daughter of Lord Ruthven 3 who lives on the Mohawk -- The truth is that she is a poor timid creature born with beauty and sensibility and cast upon the mercy of the selfish & hardhearted -- and her health is quite broken, and her brain I suspect a little cracked -- She is particularly anxious that it should not be known she has been here, and I wish you would not show this letter to anybody but Jane R & E – and not permit it to be a subject of conversation -- I should have sent this letter
G Ashr arrived yesterday bringing me a delightful letter from dear Jane for which I most heartily thank her -- I beg that Jane will not permit you to get any carpets for my room -- It is not in the least necessary -- -- I am delighted to hear that you are all in such elegant order --
Mr Watts, Matilda and two children arrived this Morn'g -- -- -- We had a most interesting day last Monday -- The Major appeared in all his glory -- and made a very popular address to the people -- there was a great show of cattle fine ploughing -- --
Tell dear little Jenny her Aunt Kitty wants to see her more than tongue can tell -- kiss little Fanny for me -- and Harry if Jane insists on it -- It is said that Cynthia West and John
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Francis J Child Papers
Some fading and cramped writing; PS is written in the left margin of page 1.
Henry D Sedgwick Esqre/Cedar Street/New York
Sept 30 1830/
Sedgwick may be feminizing the word Cherubim or Cherubin, a being of a celestial or angelic order.
The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, the official home of the Russian royal family, was extensively renovated by Catherine the Great and sometimes known as her Ice Palace. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_House_(St._Petersburg)
Likely a reference to one of the Scottish peers who held the title Lord Ruthven of Freeland.
A reference to CMS's second novel, Redwood.
Either the fruit from a jujube tree or a confection flavored with its juice.