Natural / Environmental Change, Antebellum / Slavery: Margaret Fuller

Natural / Environmental Change, Antebellum / Slavery Word Document

Similar content addressed in SOLs: VS.1a-i; USI.1a-h; USI.8b, USI.8d

In the early and mid 1800s, American society in the Northeast was becoming increasingly “modern.” Factories started emerging throughout the Northeast. Industry became a major source for jobs. Cities grew bigger and bigger. New inventions like the steam engine and railroad led people to travel easier. Life in general seemed to be moving away from its traditional style, of small farms and country living, to the newer city-based model.

In this era of rapid social and economic change, a group of writers, artists, and activists sought to remember and live the earlier lifestyle. They believed it was important to live simply, close to nature, and without all the hassle and stress that the new factory-based city life brought with it.

  • Margaret FullerOne of these people was Margaret Fuller. Margaret Fuller was a writer and activist who strongly believed in living close to nature. She worked with fellow writer Ralph Waldo Emerson on a newspaper dedicated to the subject of nature, called /The Dial. /She was also one of the first women’s rights activists and wrote extensively on the subject.
  • Summer on the Lakes, in 1843This is a page from one of Margaret Fuller’s writings on nature, /Summer on the Lakes/. In the text Fuller portrays an idealized view of nature, which she lauds as being an edenic bastion of purity. She talks of the “buildings” around Niagara Falls, and though others had castigated their presence, Fuller believes that the strength of nature’s beauty is enough to “swallow up all such objects.” Her glowing praise of nature is characteristic of the other transcendentalists of the time.
  • Summer on the Lakes, in 1843In another section of /Summer on the Lakes,/ Fuller writes about women settlers. She explains the differentiation among normalized gender roles and identifies various hardships women settlers faced in the journey westward.
  • Lowell, Mass., mills on Merrimack RiverIn the 1830s, Lowell, Massachusetts became one of the earliest factory towns in America. Using the local river water as a power source, many mills emerged in the town to produce textiles. Many other towns in the Northeast were built using Lowell as a model for the new factory-based model of a city.
  • Margaret Fuller House [i.e. Brattle House], Cambridge, MassMargaret Fuller was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in this house. Her and many other activists from the early and mid 1800s were from the Northeast. Fuller grew up as the initial wave of industrialization swept through places like Lowell in Massachusetts.