Catharine maria sedgwick biography of abraham lincoln

For instance, Fetterley believes that Leslie is repulsed to discover that her long-lost sister, Faith Leslie, taken captive by Indians, has "gone native", assimilated and married an Indian. Sedgwick portrays the Indian woman Magawisca sympathetically. But she viewed nonwhite women as a threat to the efforts of white women to establish themselves independently in society, and seemed to write nonwhite women out of the future by expressing the contemporary belief that American Indians were a vanishing race.

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They see the figure of Magawisca as a double for Hope Leslie, and note that the author did research on Mohawk customs and presents their religion sympathetically. Because Sedgwick portrays Faith Leslie's marriage to an Indian and refusal to rejoin the Puritan community, they see her as more open to American-Native American relations than was James Fenimore Cooperfor instance, whose novel Last of the Mohicans was published the year before.

An author's revised edition of the novel was released in Critical reception of the novel in America was mostly positive. A review in the New York Evening Post 14 June praises the presentations of American domestic life as being "managed with great liveliness and ingenuity, and constitute one of the most attractive parts of the book". The Ladies Museum 1 September criticizes the novel for being outmoded, complaining that the novel was written "in a style that was considered good fifty years ago".

Sedgwick uses a cosmopolitan framework to shed light on American character and national identity in the early republic by exploring America's relationship with Britain and France. The balance between American nationalism and cosmopolitanism is idealized in the novel through the character of the Marquis de Lafayetteas is the struggle between Old World notions of class and the reality of American democracy.

Live and Let Live; or, Domestic Service Illustrated depicts the ideal workplaces for working-class women to develop domestic skills.

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Sedgwick's expression of relations between mistress-employer and housekeepers reflects a return to aristocratic class relations, but one that includes employer respect for the employee's humanity and political rights. Domestic economist Catharine Beecher 's subsequent publications, A Treatise on Domestic Economy and The American Woman's Homesimilarly promoted the importance of the "labor contract" in these relationships.

Hart in stated:-"The quality of mind which is most apparent in Miss Sedgwick's writings is that of strength. The reader feels at every step that he has to do with a vigorous and active intellect. Another quality, resulting from this possession of power, is the entire absence of affectation of every kind. There is no straining for effect, no mere verbal prettinesses.

The discourse proceeds with the utmost simplicity and directness, as though the author were more intent upon what she is saying than how she says it. As a novelist, Sedgwick has for the most part wisely chosen American subjects. The local traditions, scenery, manners, and costume, being thus entirely familiar, she has had greater freedom in the exercise of the creative faculty, on which, after all, real eminence in the art mainly depends.

Her characters are conceived with distinctness, and are minutely individual and consistent, while her plot always shows a mind fertile in resources and a happy adaptation of means to ends. Inin a Harper and brothers review, it was said:-"Sedgwick has marked individuality; she writes with a higher aim than merely to amuse. Indeed, the rare endowments of her mind depend in an unusual degree upon the moral qualities with which they are united for their value.

Animated by a cheerful philosophy, and anxious to pour its sunshine into every place where there is lurking care or suffering, she selects for illustration the scenes of everyday experience, paints them with exact fidelity, and seeks to diffuse over the mind a delicious serenity, and in the heart kind feelings and sympathies, and wise ambition and steady hope.

Her style is colloquial, picturesque, and marked by a facile grace which is evidently a gift of nature. Her characters are nicely drawn and delicately contrasted, her delineation of manners decidedly the best that has appeared. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version.

In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikisource Wikidata item. American novelist. Early life and education [ edit ]. Career [ edit ]. Personal life [ edit ]. Critical response [ edit ]. Welsh, Sister Mary Michael. Washington, D. Additional coverage of Sedgwick's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols.

Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 12, Retrieved January 12, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.

Sedgwick, Catharine Maria: Further Reading gale. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia. More From encyclopedia. Sedgwick, Catharine — Sedgwick, Anne Douglas — Sedgwick, Anne Douglas. Sedge, Sege. Seder, Christian. Seder Olam. Sedella, Antonio de. Sedeh Ya'akov. Sedeh Warburg. Sedeh Eliyahu. This novel met with such positive feedback from both readers and critics that Sedgwick quickly composed three further novels, including Hope Lesliethe tale of race relations in colonial Massachusetts for which she is most recognized by modern scholarship.

In each of these novels, Sedgwick employed a historical or contemporary setting calculated to highlight tensions between social class and personal character, a tension that further enabled Sedgwick to expound the republican ideals in which her father had schooled her. In these diverse pieces, she exhorted her readers to pursue social exaltation through the achievement of personal superiority.

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In these letters, Sedgwick reflected on European customs, comparing them extensively and almost always disadvantageously with their American counterparts. Thus, by the time the mid-nineteenth-century American literary scene heralded the figures for which it is now best known — Edgar A. This latter assertion, rooted as equally in racism as in realism, serves only to elevate her motives for the modern reader.

This perspective appeared even in her earliest writings, such as in the preface of Hope Lesliein which she succinctly expresses her position:. The liberal philanthropist will not be offended by a representation which supposes that the elements of virtue and intellect are not withheld from any branch of the human family; and the enlightened and accurate observer of human nature, will admit that the difference of character among the various races of the earth, arises mainly from difference of condition.

Shortly after moving to Boston to reside with her favorite niece and namesake, Kate Sedgwick Minot, Sedwick herself died of old age on July 31, After her death, Mary E. Avallone, Charlene. Foletta, Marshall. Seddon, Rhea —. Seddon, Margaret — Seddon, John Pollard.

Catharine maria sedgwick biography of abraham lincoln: Sedgwick writes the drama of

Seddon Group Ltd. Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. Sedgwick, Catharine Maria: Further Reading. Sedgwick, Catharine Maria: Introduction. Sedgwick, Catharine Maria: Primary Sources. Sedgwick, Catharine Maria: Principal Works. Sedgwick, Catharine Maria: Title Commentary. Sedgwick, Edie — Sedgwick, Ellery. Sedgwick, John Sedgwick, Josie — Sedgwick, Marcus —.