Harriet Martineau - London and The United States

London and The United States

Writing was considerably gendered in the Victorian era. Non-fiction and prose about social, economic and political issues was dominated by men, while lighter writing about romance and domesticity were considered to be appropriate for women authors. Despite these gendered expectations in the literary world, Martineau strongly expressed her opinions on a variety of topics. In 1832 Martineau moved to London. Among her acquaintances were: Henry Hallam, Harriet Taylor, Alexander Maconochie, Henry Hart Milman, Thomas Malthus, Monckton Milnes, Sydney Smith, John Stuart Mill, George Eliot, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Lyell, as well as Thomas Carlyle. She met Florence Nightingale and Charlotte Brontë later on in her literary career.

Until 1834 Martineau was occupied with her political economy series as well as a supplemental series of Illustrations of Taxation. About the same time, she published four stories expressing support of the Whig Poor Law reforms. These tales (direct, lucid, written without any appearance of effort, and yet practically effective) display the characteristics of their author's style. Tory paternalists reacted by calling her a Malthusian "who deprecates charity and provision for the poor", while Radicals opposed her to the same degree. Whig high society fêted her.

In May 1834 Charles Darwin, on his expedition to the Galapagos Islands, received a letter from his sisters saying that Martineau was

"now a great Lion in London, much patronized by Ld. Brougham who has set her to write stories on the poor Laws" and recommending Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated in pamphlet-sized parts. They added that their brother Erasmus "knows her & is a very great admirer & every body reads her little books & if you have a dull hour you can, and then throw them overboard, that they may not take up your precious room".

In 1834, after completing the economic series, Harriet Martineau paid a long visit to the United States. During this time, she visited with James Madison, the former president, at his home of Montpelier. She also met numerous abolitionists in Boston and studied the emerging girls' schools established for their education. Her support of abolitionism, unpopular in the South, caused controversy. Her publication, soon after her return, of Society in America (1837) and How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838), added to the controversy. The two books are considered to have led to the founding of modern sociology.

In Society in America, the scholar angrily criticized the state of women's education. She wrote,

"The intellect of women is confined by an unjustifiable restriction of... education... As women have none of the objects in life for which an enlarged education is considered requisite, the education is not given... The choice is to either be 'ill-educated, passive, and subservient, or well-educated, vigorous, and free only upon sufferance."

Her article "The Martyr Age of the United States" (1839), in the Westminster Review, introduced English readers to the struggles of the abolitionists in America several years after Britain had abolished slavery.

In October 1836, soon after returning from the voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin went to London to stay with his brother Erasmus. He found him spending his days "driving out Miss Martineau", who had returned from her trip to the United States. Charles wrote to his sister,

"Our only protection from so admirable a sister-in-law is in her working him too hard." He commented, "She already takes him to task about his idleness— She is going some day to explain to him her notions about marriage— Perfect equality of rights is part of her doctrine. I much doubt whether it will be equality in practice."

The Darwins shared Martineau's Unitarian background and Whig politics, but their father Robert was concerned that, as a potential daughter-in-law, the writer was too extreme in her politics. Charles noted that his father was upset by a piece read in the Westminster Review calling for the radicals to break with the Whigs and give working men the vote "before he knew it was not hers, and wasted a good deal of indignation, and even now can hardly believe it is not hers." In early December 1836 Charles Darwin called on Martineau and may have discussed the social and natural worlds she was writing about in her book Society in America, including the "grandeur and beauty" of the "process of world making" she had seen at Niagara Falls. He remarked in a letter,

"She was very agreeable and managed to talk on a most wonderful number of subjects, considering the limited time. I was astonished to find how little ugly she is, but as it appears to me, she is overwhelmed with her own projects, her own thoughts and own abilities. Erasmus palliated all this, by maintaining one ought not to look at her as a woman."

In April 1838 Charles wrote to his older sister Susan that

"Erasmus has been with her noon, morning, and night:—if her character was not as secure, as a mountain in the polar regions she certainly would loose it.— Lyell called there the other day & there was a beautiful rose on the table, & she coolly showed it to him & said 'Erasmus Darwin' gave me that.— How fortunate it is, she is so very plain; otherwise I should be frightened: She is a wonderful woman".

Martineau wrote Deerbrook (1838), a three-volume novel published after her American books. She portrayed a failed love affair between a physician and his sister-in-law. It was considered her most successful novel. She also wrote The Hour and the Man: An Historical Romance (1839), a three-volume novel about the Haitian slave leader Toussaint L'Ouverture, who contributed to the island nation's gaining independence in 1804.