On Sat, 14 Apr 2001, John D. Giorgis wrote:
> At 11:38 PM 4/7/01 -0500 Julia Thompson wrote:
> >The section in the back of my dictionary with biographical entries merely
> >says she was an American author, critic and reformer, born in 1810, died
> >in 1850.
> >
> >My copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (published in 1955, the
> >Centennial Edition) has several quotes from her, none of them the quote
> >beginning the novel. I find the first quote of hers in there interesting:
> >"I myself am more divine than any I see."
>
> Does this seem to place her as a Transcendentalist?
She was a student of Emerson's, and spent time around members of the
Transcendentalist movement, but did not consider herself a
Transcendentalist.
She was a child prodigy, educated well by her father; after her father
died, she looked for a new mentor, and settled on Emerson. She co-edited
The Dial with him (and don't ask me what The Dial was, I once knew enough
to give a coherent answer, but I don't *this* week, at least). She got
together women's discussion groups, published feminist literature, became
the first female foreign correspondent of an American newspaper, married
an Italian (and I forget now if he was a revolutionary or a radical or
what, but something along those lines), and was returning to the US with
her family when the ship they were on sunk off of Fire Island, New York
and they all drowned.
Primarily she was a feminist, and dedicated to the eradicating barriers to
professions that women weren't really allowed to pursue.
(This is what I can remember from what my sister read to me at the
beginning of the phone call that ended up lasting almost 45 minutes,
mostly dealing with personal stuff. I guess she's been a little helpful
to the list today?)
Julia
