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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- Family Relations (Sedgwick Family)
- Authorship
- Native Americans
- Social Life and Networks
- Leisure Activities
- Press
- Literature and History
- Education
- Childhood
- Unitarianism
- Publication
- Self-reflection
- Economics
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I read your letter the day before yesterday my dear Elizabeth and I am delighted to find that you are enjoying so much and from such rational sources -- My imagination pictures you in the
I spent last Eve'g at R's and we read with delight the memoir of LaFayette in the last NA 1-- I thought very often with great satisfaction that you was enjoying the same regale -- There is something sublime in the consistency of this great Man in all the extremes of fortune -- stedfast amidst the temptations of unequalled prosperity and (oh shame to his persecutors!) unparalleled adversity -- an enthusiasm governed by reason and directed by benevolence -- What a delightful example to our species, and still shining in its brightness where every eye may behold it -- --
It would be gross affectation in me to pretend that I was not disappointed in the delay of the review -- -- Sparks has been so long in the pursuit and service of truth that I daresay he regards everything relating to fiction as a kind of chaff that ought to be blown away -- I trust I have not yet enough of the pride of an author to indulge any resentment on account of these petty vexations
I want very much to send you a copy of the Grecian wreath 2 the book I spoke of in my last 2 but I don't see as I shall ever have another opporty to send any thing -- The whole affair has been amusing enough from the beginning -- from the first intimation of it to the reception of the volume beautifully bound; with gilt letters "The Grecian Ladies to Miss Sedgwick" _____
We expect Harry home tomorrow -- Jane is going to give the girls a supper-party and each is to bring her favorite beau -- Harriet has chosen Robert Schuyler a grave dignified young man -- and Sue a Doctor Bell -- a very pleasing young man & quite as tall as her father could wish -- Miss Woodward -- a sweet girl from NHampshire who is passing the winter in town has modestly declined making her selection -- and Sue Channing will I beleive bring a young German who is said to be fascinated with her bright eyes
18' -- My letter has grown quite stale in my hands -- but as I have not yet read any from you I shall go on at least without feeling any self-reproach -- -- You must have heard of Harry's return from r Ware, he says preached a very fine Sermon -- It will be published 3 & shall be sent to you -- Our Supper party was chits who cared for nothing but shaking their feet and knew nothing about eating' -- a supper -- So we surprised them with the scraping of a fiddle, and I do not think I ever saw any pleasure surpass theirs when excepting Theodore's 4 on the 12th Night -- The pleasures of 3 youths are so easy and natural that it is delightful to minister to them -- --
Just be After we were all dressed and ready to go into the parlor, Harry told me he had sent a copy of Redwood to Mrs Barbauld & that he had a letter for me from her -- No happiness that didnot spring from my own family Circle ever gave produced an emotion of such pure delight and gratitude -- I would send the letter to you that you might see the lines traced by her own venerable hand, -- but I cannot bear to part with it -- or expose it to any unnecessary risk I shall therefore copy it _____
"Dear Madam -- The state of my eyes which have been weak and painful for some time and are by no means well now must plead my excuse for not having yet thanked you for the entertaining novel with which you favored me.
You Americans tread upon our heels in every decent provision for its public exercise can subsist without an establishment -- What a field you have for description in wastes and woods so lately trodden by the foot of man, savage life giving way every where to the social blessings of civilization, & just enough remaining to show how much has been gained by the exchange --
Should you ever come to England dear Madam, or your brother, which by the way you ought to do this being your Mother Country, I shall, if in the land of the living, be happy to pay my respects to you -- Excuse the bad writing of this letter for in truth I can hardly see to write it & beleive me Madam your obliged and obedient Servant AL Barbauld" 1 5 4
"If the house should catch fire" said Jane, "the first think I should think of would be this letter _____ after my children" an amusing qualification from her -- -- I want you to send this letter to S by the first conveyance -- for I want Sisters Sue and E -- to partake my pleasure -- I should improve your hint about printing my letter to Kate dear Lizy but I am such an unskillful penman! Do remember me affecty to Marianne if she is still with you -- Tell her that she must not forget that she used to have quite a regard for me --
Farewell dear Charles & Lizy
My darling Kitty. You must come to New York -- and see Jane and Frances, and sleep in your own Aunt Kitty's arms -- Kiss Charley for me. I have not time to print any more letters but I mean to send you a letter of your own all printed -- I heard yesterday of a sweet little girl whose
Insertion 1
Stoke Newington Octr 30 1824
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I
Wax blots, tears, and smudges. Some tears have been taped. The inserted dateline of Barbauld's letter is written in the left margin of page 3.
Charles Sedgwick Esqre/Lenox/Masstts --
CMS. Jany '25
Some vertical lines in the left margin of page 3.
A reference to the January 1825 North American Review (Vol 20, No 46, pp. 1-34) in which an anonymous author briefly and negatively reviews two recently published memoirs of LaFayette. The bulk of the article is a biography assembled by the author from a variety of other sources.
The Grecian Wreath of Victory is a collection of essays, edited by W. E. Dean and published in December 1824. It is dedicated "To ONE in whom the mild and unobtrusive charities of private life are blended with the powerful conceptions of intellect, and who, as the authoress of "Redwood," has contributed so largely toward elevating the literary character of her native land, THIS WORK is Inscribed with every sentiment of respectful esteem. December 25, 1824."
Ware's sermon was published as "A sermon delivered at the ordination of the Rev William Henry Furness as pastor of the first Congregational Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, January 12, 1825."
Although the immediate Sedgwick family at this time included three Theodores (Theodore Sedgwick II, Theodore Sedgwick III, and Theodore Sedgwick Pomeroy), we believe the most likely to be named here is Theodore Sedgwick III, who was a young teen at this time.
Our editorial policy is normally not to include any words not original to Sedgwick; we make an exception here as we deem this copied message to be essential to the sense of the letter as a whole.