Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Woman in the Nineteenth Century is a book by American journalist, editor, and women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller.

The basis for Fuller's essay is the idea that man will rightfully inherit the earth when he becomes an elevated being, understanding of divine love.

According to Fuller, America has been hindered from reaching equality because it inherited depravity from Europe, hence its treatment of Native and African Americans.

Fuller quotes the ancient Medes on how all people are equal and bound to each other; those who infringe on others' rights are condemned, but the biggest sin is hypocrisy.

[1] After completing the expanded version, renamed Woman in the Nineteenth Century, she wrote to a friend: "I had put a good deal of my true self in it, as if, I suppose I went away now, the measure of my footprint would be left on earth.

[4] Greeley assisted in its publication and released it as part of his "Cheerful Books for the People" series in February 1845, selling for 50 cents a copy.

Fuller identified with the Polish-Lithuanian heroine Emilia Plater, a woman who raised a regiment during the November Uprising against the Russian Empire.

[6] An 1860 essay collection, Historical Pictures Retouched, by Caroline Healey Dall, called Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century "doubtless the most brilliant, complete, and scholarly statement ever made on the subject".

[8] Henry David Thoreau thought highly of the book, suggesting that its strength came in part from Fuller's conversational ability.

[9] In the Evening Post, William Cullen Bryant noted "the thoughts it puts forth are so important that we ought to rejoice to know it read by every man and woman in America" despite some "pretty strong" language.

[10] The influential editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold, believing Fuller went against his notion of feminine modesty, referred to Woman in the Nineteenth Century as "an eloquent expression of her discontent at having been created female".

[11] American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, previously a supporter of Fuller, was critical of her after Woman of the Nineteenth Century was published.

[12]Woman in the Nineteenth Century, which has become one of the major documents in American feminism,[13] is considered the first of its kind in the United States.