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An Extraordinary Celebration for an Extraordinary Woman!

The Margaret Fuller Bicentennial has been an incredible opportunity to celebrate and learn about an extraordinary woman and continue her global vision of equality and human rights. The major events of the Bicentennial are now over, but the resources developed during the Bicentennial will remain available through this website at least through the end of 2011.

The goal of the Bicentennial has been to raise awareness of Margaret Fuller, so that her story may inspire people of all ages to follow her lead and think independently, express their thoughts clearly, defend their convictions with courage, learn through dialogue and the free exchange of opinions, believe in the equality of all people, and be open to change. Then her legacy will be assured.

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)

Author, editor, journalist, literary critic, educator, Transcendentalist, and women’s rights advocate....

Today we consider Margaret Fuller one of the guiding lights of the first-wave of feminism. She helped  educate the women of her day by leading a series of Conversations in which women were empowered to read, think and discuss important issues of the day. She empowered generations to follow through her ground-breaking writings, especially her landmark book Woman in the Nineteenth Century.

Among her accomplishments:

  • First American to write a book about equality for women
  • First editor of The Dial, foremost Transcendentalist journal, appointed by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • First woman to enter Harvard Library to pursue research
  • First woman journalist on Horace Greeley’s New York Daily Tribune
  • First woman literary critic who also set literary standards
  • First woman foreign correspondent and war correspondent to serve under combat conditions

Many Thanks to the Bicentennial Committee

The Margaret Fuller Bicentennial Committee was a grassroots group of Unitarian Universalists , scholars, and representatives from historical sites, commissions, and organizations.  Together they planned tours, exhibits, trips, programs and performances intended to celebrate the life and legacy of Margaret Fuller during the bicentennial year of her birth, and beyond.

Funding was provided by the Fund for Unitarian Universalism, Mass Humanities, the Unitarian Universalist Historical Society, and individual donations. Unitarian Universalist Women & Religion served as the fiscal agent and is continuing to host the website. To learn more about this organization, please visit www.uuwr.org.

This Web site will be updated periodically as new events and resources are developed. If you are planning a Margaret Fuller related event, we would love to list it here. Please e-mail us the details and we'll post it on the events calendar. We also welcome the suggestion and submission of possible resources to be added to the site. Donations continue to be accepted to maintain the website and resources.

Questions about the site? Contact the Webweaver.

 
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My friends write to urge my return the talk of our country as the land of the future. It is so, but that spirit which made it all it is of value in my eyes, which gave me all hope with which I can sympathize for that future, is more alive here at present than in America. My country is at present spoiled by prosperity, stupid with the lust of gain, soiled by crime in its willing perpetuation of slavery, shamed by an unjust war, noble sentiment much forgotten even by individuals, the aims of politicians selfish or petty, the literature frivolous and venal. In Europe, amid the teachings of adversity, a nobler spirit is struggling -- a spirit which cheers and animates mine. I hear earnest words of pure faith and love. I see deeds of brotherhood. This is what makes my America. I do not deeply distrust my country. She is not dead, but in my time she sleepeth, and the spirits of our fathers flame no more, but lies hid beneath the ashes. It will not be so long; bodies cannot live when the soul gets too overgrown with gluttony and falsehood.
-- Letter XXIV (19 April 1848), Part II, Things and Thoughts of Europe, p. 326