Previously in the Lives of Margaret Fuller, smart girl, no friends, becomes an admirer of Goethe, nearly dies of typhoid, father dies from cholera, and at the age of 25 she decides she needs to earn money for the family.

Fuller wants to write a biography of Goethe but it is a big project and she believes she should visit Germany. Since she needs money she puts off this project and instead works on penning critical articles for American Monthly Magazine and translating some poems by Goethe.

Emerson’s star is on the rise at this time. Fuller probably saw him preach several years earlier and wanted to meet him but was too shy. In late 1834 Fuller gave a manuscript of some poems by the Italian poet Tasso that she has recently translated to her friend Frederic Henry Hedge and asked Hedge to nonchalantly show them to Emerson. He did and Emerson was impressed enough that he wanted to meet her. But Fuller got shy and didn’t go. But she still wanted Emerson to notice her so in May 1836 she wrote an elegy on Emerson’s late brother, Charles. Unfortunately the poem appeared anonymously and Fuller wasn’t sure he’d know she had written it. Fuller’s friend Harriet Martineau praised Fuller to Emerson and his wife Lidian who then invited Fuller for a two-week visit. Finally, on July 21, 1836, Fuller arrived at Emerson’s Concord home. Unfortunately, Emerson was under the impression that Fuller had come to visit his wife, not him.

Fuller was very plain, had a nasal voice and a bad habit of incessantly opening and closing her eyelids. Her domineering and acerbic reputation also preceded her. Emerson was certain he would find it hard being in the same room as Fuller and that they would not likely get along. Nonetheless, Fuller managed to worm her way into Emerson’s good opinion and her two-week visit lasted three.

Emerson got Fuller a job working in Bronson Alcott’s experimental school. Alcott kept her so busy that she generally had only six hours a night to sleep. She had no time to pursue her own writing and study, and she and Alcott began having pedagogical differences. It also didn’t help that after 25 weeks she still hadn’t been paid. Alcott eventually paid her some money before his school closed but not even close to what she was owed.

During this time, however, she became part of the Transcendental Club. Fuller is often called a Transcendentalist but she really wasn’t. She agreed with them on many aspects of their philosophy, but ultimately she found the philosophy to be one only a well-off man could ever completely follow. The mind and soul were supposed to transcend the body but Fuller’s migraines, trouble with exhaustion and depression as well as the fact that she had to work for a living kept her from embracing the philosophy. She liked hanging out with the transcendentalists though because they allowed her to be intelligent and express her opinions because only the mind mattered, they could look beyond her sex. Eventually she edited the Transcendental journal The Dial. For this she was supposed to be paid but the journal never made any money and Fuller made herself ill from exhaustion from all the work she did to produce it.

Fuller really began to come into her own and earn money when she started hosting a series of conversations for women only so they did not have to feel intimidated by the presence of men or feel as though they needed to be deferential. Given Fuller’s need to always be in charge, her role as conversation leader was to “inspire listeners to offer their own reflections on the topic.” She and her conversations were a great success and it won her a large and dedicated following.

As a woman and an intellectual in nineteenth century America, Fuller had to constantly reinvent herself in order to make her way in the male-dominated world. As she struggled, Fuller became more aware that people, especially women, were unable to achieve their highest selves because of social and economic problems as well as a lack of education. These issues were not ones they brought on themselves but often were imposed upon them. Her essay “The Great Lawsuit” was her first foray into feminism and her later book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century began here. In the essay Fuller notes:

in the minds of too many men, there was “a tone of feeling towards women as towards slaves,” Fuller insisted that the only way to keep the subjection of women from becoming permanent was to elevate them from their voiceless position and to permit them to vote, to advocate, and to legislate for themselves. Yet Fuller also maintained that legal freedoms were only a means toward a more essential end. The transcendent goal was, as always in her thinking, self-discovery and development.

When she published Woman in the Nineteenth Century in February 1845, she hoped it might sell a thousand copies in a year or two. It sold 1,500 copies in the first week.

Fuller’s writing made the great newspaper man Horace Greeley take notice. He invited her to move to New York, live in his house, and write a regular column for the paper. Fuller put him off for over a year but eventually took him up on the offer. She loved New York and her release from the comparatively provincial Boston.

After a few years she had the opportunity to go on a European tour with some friends. She didn’t have the money for it so Greeley offered to make her the first female foreign correspondent. She sent regular weekly dispatches to the paper on the countries she was visiting, the culture, the people. Eventually she ended up in Italy where she fell in love with Rome.

She also fell in love with a man eleven years her junior, Giovani Angelo Ossoli. He fell in love with her first and then wormed his way into her heart. Giovani convinced her to have sex. Unfortunately for Margaret, it took only one night of passion for her to become pregnant. The two married but kept it a secret. Ossoli was in the service of the Civil Guard and his family in tight with the pope. Margaret was not Catholic and if Ossoli’s family found out he would be in danger of losing his title and inheritance to his younger brother.

It wasn’t long before the Ossolis found themselves in the midst of the Roman uprising and wars to unite Italy. Fuller gave birth to Angelo Eugenio Filippo Ossoli on September 5, 1848. Fuller developed “nursing fever” and was unable to nurse the baby. She hired a wet nurse and left “Nino” in the town of Rieti while she returned to Rome. Perhaps if circumstances had been different Fuller would have been a better mother. She genuinely thought Nino was safe in Rieti but later discovered that he had almost died from illness and starvation.

Ossoli fought for Rome’s freedom and Italy’s unification but the cause was lost. He and Margaret and baby Nino had to make a quick and quiet exit from Rome and hid out for awhile in Florence until they were discovered and made to leave Italy entirely.

And so begins Fuller’s fateful journey back to America. Her friends all told her not to come, to finish writing her book on Italy in Europe. But Fuller insisted she needed to return to America. They booked passage on a ship whose experienced captain died of smallpox before they had reached Gibraltor. The ship was taken over by Henry P. Bangs who had only captained one or two other ships in his life. By the time they crossed the Atlantic and were running up the eastern seaboard, they were being chased by a hurricane. The inexperienced captain had no idea. Nor did he have his bearings correct. On July 19, 1850, the ship ran aground on a sandbar about 200 yards from Fire Island. The inexperienced Bangs made a bad job of it and didn’t know what to do.

The wind and sea were getting heavier as the storm approached. The crowd that gathered on the shore could have launched a rescue but just stood and watched and waited for the ship to break apart and wash ashore so they could scavenge the passengers’ belongings. A few of the crew decided to try and swim to shore. They made it and implored the people on shore to help with a rescue. Still the growing crowd refused. Hours went by and things just kept getting worse. Several more people jumped in only to drown. Fuller was not a good swimmer, she was terrified of water and since she was a child had nightmares of drowning. She would not jump in and she would not leave her child. Ossoli would not leave Fuller.

After ten hours the ship began to break apart. The captain had already jumped ship. The only ones left onboard was the ship’s steward and the Ossolis. The steward loved Nino and declared he would get him to shore safely. But before he could even jump into the water, he and Nino were thrown overboard. Twenty minutes later their bodies washed ashore. Ossoli became caught in the rigging and washed away. His body was never found. No one knows if Fuller jumped or was washed overboard, only that her body was never found. She was only forty.

I am not ashamed to say that I cried over Margaret’s death. Her story is one of a woman trying to achieve her highest self against all the odds. She almost gave up a few times, but something would always happen to pull her back from the brink. Matteson does a fantastic job of telling her story and examining her legacy but perhaps her friend James Freeman Clarke says it best:

Margaret Fuller’s greatest work was in showing other people the unique power and genius in themselves and, once they had discovered that uniqueness, giving them the urging, the cajoling, and the love that they required to bring their own greatness into the world.