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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- Family Relations (Sedgwick Family)
- Religion
- Health and Illness
- Death
- Motherhood
- Education
- Literature and History
- Social Life and Networks
- Urban Life
- Morality and Ethics
- Gender Roles
- Clothing
- Self-reflection
- Shopping and Material Exchange
- Domestic Life and Duties
- Childbirth
- Travel and Touring, US
- Friendship
I am grieved my dear Frances by the long continuance of your silence -- I have not heard one word from you since Mr Watson came down -- -- Mr Bleecker is in town, & has called once, but I didnot see him -- -- I hear from Stockbridge that Catharine is satisfied and pleased with her situation, & I trust my dear Frances that in her advantage you find consolation for the terrible loss of her society & help --
Both you and Catharine must have been shocked at the intelligence of our good George's death, & both must have lamented the loss of a valued friend -- He was himself totally unconscious of his danger -- and we were all insensible to it -- When he left us, he walked from Broadway to the boat, & expected confidently to return in a few days -- I have regretted deeply that we should have been so unapprehensive that he was, I esteem a mercy, for I beleive that God in mercy shelters his children from a view of this fearful passage where they have not strength to look upon it without dismay -- George's life has been a continual preparation for this event, & I beleive his passions and feelings were in that obedient and happy state that he was 2 ready for the summons of his Lord -- What an admonition is there in the quietness we feel in regarding the death of a faithful disciple! -- George has left many friends here beyond our family circle -- -- He was highly esteemed in Mr Spring's church -- and has left his memorial there --
We have had Eliza Cabot here for a few days, and have enjoyed her sweet society as much as it is possible to enjoy such a blessing in this hurly-burly City -- -- I often wished my dear Sister that you whose heart naturally unfolds to such celestial influences could have shared with us the happiness that
Charles Elizabeth and little Kate leave us today -- They have been detained since Saturday by the storm -- We have enjoyed their visit, as much as it is possible where there are so many claims on the time, & such various objects that must be attended to -- The City is thronged with strangers -- and it is our misfortuned to know 3 people from all quarters, & to be obliged to give some portion of time where there is no benefit to be conferred or gained -- If I were to live my life over one of the numberless errata I would try to correct would be contracting multifarious acquaintances and friendships -- -- -- --
Mr Bryant is established here, & is editing a review 1 jointly with Doctor Anderson -- I am a subscriber -- and shall send the numbers to you as fast as they come out, & when you have read them I wish you would send them to
I expect to leave here for Boston on Thursday & I hope to be at home about the first of July -- I wish my dear Frances you would write to me at Boston -- and address the letter to the care of Wm Minot Esqre -- Sister Jane is just now confined to her nursery -- her children th is not yet able 4 to leave her room, & barely crawls from her bed to her easy-chair -- -- Her baby is very thriving -- I think as large & fine a child as I have ever seen --
Jane has brought me a pack of Harry's clothes, (and I presum -- the principal part of his wardrobe) I have sewed them up and directed them to R M Meigs -- The review is with them --
My dearest Sister do not permit such a deathlike suspension of our intercourse -- remember me very aff'y to all -- & beleive me
Letter
Massachusetts Historical Society
Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I
Wax blot and tears. A fold in the paper at the bottom of page 3/4 obscures some words on both pages.
Mrs F. P. Watson/Care of R. M. Meigs/Albany
C M S -- June rs Watson/Beautiful tribute/to Eliza Cabot
Vertical lines in the left margin of page 2
To pursue a career as a writer and poet, in 1825 William Cullen Bryant left his law practice in Massachusetts and found employment as an editor of the short-lived New-York Review and Atheneum. See https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_York_Review_and_Atheneum_Magazin/su0RAAAAYAAJ?hl=en