Home to Margaret Fuller until the age of 16, this three-story, Federal style house is associated with Fuller’s expansive and politically-driven education under the direction of her radical father. Fuller’s Women in the 19th century , published in 1845, was the first major American exposition of feminism, and it was used as a primary source of information during the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY. Born in 1810, Fuller was considered a prodigy, reading Latin by age six. Though sometimes resentful that her father drove her education at such a breakneck pace, in Women in the 19th century, Fuller wrote about a girl, "Miranda," whose father had given her the advantage of treating her as a “living mind.” Considered "unsexed" and emotional to the point of hysteria by her contemporaries, Fuller’s contributions to Boston society through her “Conversations,” a philosophical, lecture and discussion series for women, and her contributions to literary critique and journalism as editor-in-chief of the Transcendental magazine The Dial (1840-1842), attest to a life of intellectual searching and accomplishment. “Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow,” Fuller once wrote. In 1846, after serving as a literary critic for the New York Tribune, Fuller left America and settled in Italy, where she studied the Roman Revolution and married an Italian Marchese. In 1850, a 40-year old Fuller, her Italian husband and their two-year old son died in a shipwreck off the coast of Fire Island. Fuller's untimely demise cut short a life recently turned in new and promising directions.
The Margaret Fuller House, a National Historic Landmark, is located at 71 Cherry St. in Cambridge, MA. The property is currently a neighborhood community center and is open to the public during operating hours. Home | List of Sites | Main Map | Boston/Cambridge Map | Next Site
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Margaret Fuller House
Last Modified: Monday, 30-Mar-98 15:42:58EST