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Ednah Dow Cheney Carries Margaret Fuller's Feminist Transcendentalism

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Ednah Dow Cheney Carries Margaret Fuller's Feminist Transcendentalism The Second Generation: as Ednah Dow Cheney, Caroline Healey Dall, and Julia Ednah Dow Cheney Carries Ward Howe. Moreover, while Therese B. Dykeman’s Margaret Fuller’s Feminist scholarship on Cheney in Presenting Women Transcendentalism into the Philosophers, American Women Philosophers 1650­ Early Progressive Era 1930 and in several articles demonstrate the influence of Cheney’s writings on the histories of American Labanya Mookerjee aesthetics, it provides little insight on the social impact Penn State Brandywine that Cheney had in New England and in the Reconstruction, postwar south. Finally, although This essay receieved the Eastern American scholarhip has significantly picked up on the influence of Studies Association's 201 3 Francis Ryan key female Transcendentalists, such as Margaret Fuller, Award for Undergraduate Research. the role of the second generation of Transcendentalists, Cheney’s generation, in bringing Transcendentalist In the nineteenth century, the Transcendentalist thought into the late nineteenth and early twentieth and women’s movements combined to alter the centuries through social activism remains partially discussion on the politics of womanhood, developing explored by Tiffany Wayne and Phyllis Cole. Therefore, creative space for progressive individuals to actively this paper is an effort to recover a new piece of the make change in the expansion of human rights. Ednah history of the Transcendentalist movement, which has Dow Cheney, a young widow and single mother in the been assumed to have ended by the 1850s, through the mid­1850s, merged the spirit of Transcendentalism that life of Ednah Dow Cheney. Cheney, influenced by the she inherited from her family and friends and her teachings of Margaret Fuller, applied Transcendentalist burgeoning passion for social activism to become a philosophy into direct social action; in this way, she dedicated public servant. An early attendee of the extended the Transcendentalist movement into the early Conversations of Margaret Fuller, author of Woman in twentieth century and furthered the feminist movement the Nineteenth Century and a pioneer in the field of in her own way by challenging the commonly held feminist Transcendentalism, Cheney borrowed Fuller’s gender roles of the time. radical ideas and translated them into real action. Cheney’s collision into Fuller’s world came with Throughout the second half of the 1850s and into the the support of her parents and grandparents, who were early twentieth century, Cheney founded the New liberal enough to take their daughter to hear Emerson. In England School of Design and the New England her autobiography, Reminiscences of Ednah Dow Women’s Club and managed the New England Hospital Cheney (Born Littlehale), Cheney recalled that one of for Women and Children, the Boston Education her first experiences with Transcendentalism was when Commission of the Freedmen’s Aid Society, and lectured she, in her early teens between the years of 1840­1850, for the New England Suffrage Association and the was “at a lecture before the society ‘for the diffusion of Concord School of Philosophy. More significantly, she knowledge,’ which [she] attended with [her] father and continued through the century to become a feminist mother” (Reminiscences 99). It was around this time that intellectual in Fuller’s vein. she was also attending classes to study Plato and Despite the crucial role that Cheney played in Dante; Cheney noted that Amos Bronson Alcott, running such prominent organizations in an environment abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, would often that was particularly restrictive for women, her story has join her classes and engage with her peers with their been left largely overlooked by recent scholarship. Anne readings (Reminiscences 100). Even from the time when Rose’s 1981 book, Transcendentalism as a Social she was a child, Cheney had learned to appreciate a Movement, 1830­1850, provides a starting point for rather unorthodox spiritual lifestyle; her own conversation on the application of Transcendentalism grandmother “never joined the popular church, and read not just as a philosophical movement, but also as a Emerson and Parker with great enjoyment” at a time theory that gave way to activism; however, the book also when Transcendentalism was vilified and perceived as ends at the very point where the writings of Margaret an “elite” and exclusive club (Reminiscences 3). Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson were absorbed and Cheney’s father, Sargent Smith Littlehale, was also a carried to social involvement by the second generation prominent figure in Cheney’s life, as she claimed that he of Transcendentalists, which included individuals such was “very liberal in his views…and was a believer in L. Mookerjee 5 Woman Suffrage at a very early date. The first anti­ remaining years of her life. Cheney’s exposure to such a slavery word that I ever heard was from him” radical­minded woman combined with Haliburton’s own (Reminiscences 4). Exposure to her father’s progressive return to domestic life further shaped Cheney’s beliefs set the initial stepping stones for Cheney’s understanding of the restrictive state of women in subsequent life as an activist for freedmen and women society. As a widow and an eventual mother of a in the mid­nineteenth century. Moreover, her deceased child, Cheney reflected back at her involvement in the Freedmen’s Aid Bureau, which she relationship with Haliburton and fondly remembered that was the secretary of in the headquarters in Boston, Haliburton had always said that she “wished she had could have stemmed from her childhood experience been born a widow with one child; for she thought it was living on a diverse street that was inhabited by a variety the most ‘independent position for a woman’” of individuals from different socioeconomic and racial (Reminiscences 28). But, more than anything Cheney backgrounds. She recalled that Belknap Street, where writes that she is “greatly indebted to [Mary Ann she lived after her parents were married in 1819, Haliburton], not only for a great deal of intellectual expanded into several sections; the upper part was: stimulus and social enjoyments, but especially because often called Joy Place…Here were some of the Haliburton introduced her “to two of the most precious finest houses and most ‘swell’ people in the city. In the friends of my life…Margaret Fuller and Mary Shannon” middle part were families of good standing, and in this (Reminiscences 28). part was our house, where I was born. The lower part Over the summers, Cheney would visit the was almost entirely occupied by colored people, who prestigious Exeter Academy in New Hampshire where streamed by our house, and gave us children that she would attend lectures given by Emerson and would familiarity with this people which, thank God, has also build intellectual friendships that would introduce prevented me from having any difficulty in recognizing her to the early British Romantic poets. In this early era the ‘negro as a man and a brother’ (Reminiscences 7). of her life, she was acquainted with Mary Shannon Cheney’s childhood environment and her rich whom Cheney described as “broad and progressive in connections to the Transcendentalist society through her her though, a dear and honored friend of John Weiss, family provided the perfect breeding grounds for a Samuel Johnson, and Theodore Parker, an original strong life of intellect and activism. As her colleague, member of the Free Religious Association, an active Julia Ward Howe, writes on Cheney, “The home Abolitionist, a friend of the Freedman’s schools, and a atmosphere was favorable to mental growth. Love of thorough Woman Suffragist” (Reminiscences 55). She learning, with a taste for good literature, was an also made acquaintance with Harriot Kezia Hunt whom, inheritance” (Howe 8). she claimed, “was among the most remarkable and Cheney moved on to reflect on her mother and characteristic of pioneers of women physicians” her network of friends; one particular acquaintance of (Reminiscences 51). In the coming years, Cheney and her mother stood out: Mary Ann Haliburton. Daughter of Hunt would work together to found the Women’s School a bank officer in New Hampshire, Haliburton met Ednah of Design in Boston. The connections Cheney Parker Dow when they were young children; their developed at Exeter Academy remained with her relationship grew throughout the years, as the two throughout her career and were crucial in fostering in her companions engaged in intellectual discussions and a sense of romanticism combined with the practical were involved in the various literary societies of the time notion of activism. (Reminiscences 27). Cheney was especially inspired by At the ripe age of thirteen, between November Haliburton’s story following her father’s remarriage after 1837 and February 1838, Ednah Dow Littlehale (later his wife’s premature death. Violently opposed to the Cheney) and her classmate Caroline Healey (later Dall) remarriage, Haliburton left her home: “At last she came engaged in a debate on the position and rights of to the resolution to leave home and support herself by women in society. Margaret McFadden explores this teaching drawing, for which she had some talent. But correspondence in “Boston Teenagers Debate the she had a brother then in business in New York who was Woman Question, 1837­1838,” stating that while scandalized at the idea that his sister should work for Cheney’s strategy was to “deemphasize differences her support” (Reminiscences 27). Finally, Haliburton was between the sexes, as a matter of justice in light of their convinced by her brother to leave her work and live off common humanity,” Caroline Dall claimed that “women of a monthly allowance from her brother for the are different from men, and these differences give them L. Mookerjee 6 strength and power in different separate areas. limitations on women. Starting from November of 1839, Abandoning those separate spheres will denigrate Fuller delivered a series of lectures titled women, take away their power, and make them “Conversations,” which were conducted in the bookstore ‘mannish’ instead of ‘ladylike’” (McFadden 837).
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