Harriet Martineau

8 Key excerpts on "Harriet Martineau"

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  Harriet Martineau and the Birth of Disciplines

  Nineteenth-century intellectual powerhouse

  • Valerie Sanders, Gaby Weiner(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  28

  Susan Hoecker-Drysdale, a contributor to this volume, published a book-length sociological biography, Harriet Martineau: First Woman Sociologist, in 1992. From the early 1990s onward, Canadian sociologist Lynn McDonald included Martineau in her surveys of the origins and founding of the social sciences,29 and as we have seen in the Introduction, the inaugural working seminar of the informally organized Harriet Martineau Sociological Society convened on Mackinac Island, Michigan, in 1997.30 Pat Lengermann and Jill Niebrugge-Brantley made Martineau central to their widely cited 1998 text/reader on the women founders.31

  At the turn of the twenty-first century, Joe Feagan, in his 2000 presidential address to the American Sociological Association,32 made a strong plea for sociologists to pay attention to Martineau, Jane Addams, W.E.B. Dubois and other early sociologists, and to recognize their frequent superiority over many of the more commonly cited white male sociologists such as de Tocqueville. In concert with Feagan’s appeal, Harriet Martineau: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives appeared in 2001, based largely on papers presented during the 1997 Mackinac seminar. The subsequent activities and substantive work completed by the small group of scholars in the Harriet Martineau Sociological Society have been reported variously by myself and Deborah Logan,33 and need not be repeated here. To summarize, a few sociologists are actively explicating Martineau’s foundational ideas, but the overall impact on the discipline as a whole has been relatively superficial (as John Vint and Keiko Funaki have similarly noted in Chapter 3 in relation to Martineau’s impact on economic theory, despite the popularity of her Illustrations of Political Economy). Beginning with the late 1990s, Martineau is increasingly cited in introductory textbooks as a foundational figure,34 but rarely do sociologists make substantive use of her ideas and insights in the same way they routinely employ those of Tocqueville, Durkheim, or Weber. Indeed, the foundational patriarchal mechanisms35 that obscured Martineau’s sociological contributions in the first place now seem resurgent and as virulent and widespread as ever.36 The perspectival gulf dividing privileged, status quo mainstream patriarchal visions of the discipline, on the one hand, and more inclusive, critical perspectives, on the other, is sharply illustrated by comparing the tone and content of two volumes prepared to commemorate the centennial of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Craig Calhoun’s volume (published by the University of Chicago Press with a subvention from the ASA) generally represents ‘business as usual’ whereas Tony Blasi’s work is an exemplary study in inclusive challenges to the standard, entrenched views of establishment sociology.37

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  Prose by Victorian Women

  An Anthology

  • Andrea Broomfield, Sally Mitchell(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  II. Harriet Martineau

  (1802–1876)

  When writing her own obituary for the Daily News, Harriet Martineau categorized herself as a popularizer of other people’s ideas. She concluded that her “original power was nothing more than was due to earnestness and intellectual clearness within a certain range.... In short, she could popularise, while she could neither discover or invent” (June 29, 1876). Martineau did indeed gain a reputation as a popularizer of others’ ideas; however, she was also an intellectual in her own right. Over the course of her lifetime she espoused theories on a vast array of subjects, including theology, political economy, the woman question, abolition of slavery, household management, and invalidism. No matter what her topic, Martineau worked to advance the cause of rationality, often employing positivism and utilitarianism to help explain human behavior. Although considered by her contemporaries to be a social reformer, Martineau did not believe political legislation could lead to change; she argued instead that if people were educated to think rationally, without emotion or convention interfering with their logic, reform would follow naturally. Ultimately, Martineau’s arguments for public education, laissez-faire economics, and female equality directly influenced discussion and reform in her time, thus making her one of Victorian Britain’s most influential women of letters.

  Harriet Martineau was born on June 12, 1802, in Norwich, to Thomas and Elizabeth Rankin Martineau. She was the sixth of eight children. A sickly child, susceptible to periods of depression and loneliness, she sought the comforts of religion as well as the companionship of her younger brother, James, to help counteract her melancholia. Martineau initially was educated at home under the tutelage of her older siblings. She learned French, Latin, writing, and arithmetic before being sent at age eleven to a Unitarian school conducted by Isaac Perry. When the school closed two years later, she resumed studying at home with professional tutors. Throughout her adolescence, Martineau maximized her opportunity to obtain an education superior to that given to most nineteenth-century middle-class girls.

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  Harriet Martineau

  Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives

  • Michael R. Hill, Susan Hoecker-Drysdale, Michael R. Hill, Susan Hoecker-Drysdale(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Because we contend pointedly—as have others—that it is high time to take Harriet Martineau seriously within the discipline of sociology, the present volume provides several worked examples illustrating how to begin the project of giving Martineau her due: pedagogically, contextually, theoretically, and methodologically. In this chapter, we examine the opportunities and challenges of utilizing Martineau pedagogically in the sociology classroom, in introductory courses and across the broad spectrum of substantive interests that comprises sociology today. In the chapters that follow, Pat Duffy Hutcheon shows how to locate Martineau historically and intellectually within the social and religious movement called Unitarianism, providing a model for future explications of Martineau's location within other influential nineteenth-century movements of thought. Lynn McDonald approaches Martineau through the eyes of another major nineteenth-century figure, Florence Nightingale, and reminds us that our assessments of Martineau's centrality depend, in part, on the disciplinary spectacles one wears and values. Hoecker-Drysdale discusses Martineau's links with Auguste Comte, long acknowledged as one of the discipline's early male founders. Lengermann and Niebrugge favorably compare Martineau to Emile Durkheim, and Hill draws sharp methodological contrasts between Alexis de Tocqueville and Martineau. Beyond these contextual, theoretical, and methodological assessments, Martineau's continuing substantive relevance for special sociological work is also extraordinarily wide. In relation to the sociology of work and occupations, for example, Hoecker-Drysdale's two-part essay, "Words on Work," explores the complexity and sophistication of Martineau's analyses of human labor. Mary Jo Deegan, taking a very different tack, demonstrates Martineau's critical relevance for the sociology of physical disability. In sum, and in varied ways, all of the contributors to this volume provide sociological exemplars of how to take Martineau seriously.

  In the remainder of this chapter, we draft the pedagogical dimensions of Martineau's biography, accomplishments, and ideas in sociology classrooms. Readers unfamiliar with Martineau's work will find the following material useful as a resource for introducing Martineau to students and also as an orientation for the substantive chapters below. From this perspective, the substantive chapters easily perform a double duty. Not only do they stand as independent scholarly explorations in their own right, but, when utilized selectively, they make excellent reading assignments in college courses, for example, in the sociology of religion, the sociology of work and occupations, sociological theory, health and disability studies, sociological methodology, social movements, and the sociology of women, to emphasize the most obvious pedagogical applications. We fully expect that—when more scholars in additional specialties begin taking Martineau seriously—the list from which to choose relevant course readings will become ever more expansive.

  Biography and Critique

  Biographical Sketch

  To the extent that any complex institutional phenomenon such as sociology can have identifiable founders, Alice Rossi (1973: 118-24) justly celebrated Harriet Martineau as "the first woman sociologist." Martineau's life is a remarkable example of sociological invention, growth and insight. Harriet, born in 1802, was the sixth of eight children in a middle-class English family. Her younger brother, James, became a well-known cleric (Jackson 1901). Her father's occupation as a manufacturer placed Harriet in comfortable surroundings, but her childhood was marred by strong feelings of fearfulness and self-doubt. She was, nonetheless, intellectually industrious and applied herself to both secular and religious studies. With the exception of two years in private, coeducational classes and a year in a boarding school for girls, she was educated largely at home by siblings and by hired tutors. Through self-study, Martineau rigorously augmented her early exposure to subjects routinely taught only to males. Education was important in the Martineau family and Harriet was both immersed and self-immersed in the classics, languages (Greek, Latin, Italian, French—she later taught herself German), literature, history, composition, mathematics, religious studies, and later as an adolescent expanded her studies in music, modern literature, philosophy, poetry and languages. Women were barred from university study, but Martineau maintained a regimen of intense, self-directed investigation throughout her life. Troubled by increasing deafness as a youth, Martineau required an ear trumpet during adulthood.

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  The Socio-Literary Imaginary in 19th and 20th Century Britain

  Victorian and Edwardian Inflections

  • Maria Bachman, Albert Pionke, Maria K. Bachman, Albert D. Pionke(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  While her reputation as a sociologist continues to be held in thrall to the “jealousy of men,” Martineau does have her champions among modern sociologists. 60 Scholarly interest in Martineau continued sporadically throughout the early twentieth century, with a notable boost from historian R. K. Webb’s biography, Harriet Martineau. A Radical Victorian (1960). Webb—who, unfortunately, does not comment on Martineau’s abilities as a historian—insightfully noted that she had “for years been preaching sociology without the name.” 61 Shortly after, sociologist Seymour Lipset published an edition of the long out-of-print Society in America (1962), followed by Alice Rossi’s definitive assertion in The Feminist Papers that Martineau was the “first woman sociologist” (1973). 62 By the 1990s, Martineau studies was a field rich in multi-disciplinary assessments, from Valerie Sanders’ literary analysis in Reason Over Passion (1986) and Gaby Weiner’s reprint of the Autobiography (1983) to Hoecker-Drysdale’s Harriet Martineau: First Woman Sociologist (1992) and Elisabeth Arbuckle’s Harriet Martineau in the London Daily News (1994). Well before the Comte project, Mary Jo Deegan writes, Martineau “authored the first systematic methodological treatise in sociology [ HTO ], [and] conducted extended international comparative studies of social institutions…

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  How to Observe Morals and Manners

  • Harriet Martineau(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The scientific observer examines the moral state of society, assesses its potential for moral progress, and-where possible-encourages those practices and values conducive to the social recognition of mutual interest. Clear thinking, reliable research, and universal education are fundamental to this process. Here, Martineau’s purpose as an observer-and in teaching us how to observe-reveals itself. As writer, observer, and sociologist, Martineau pursued a life of scholarship, social action, and the diffusion of knowledge to persons in all social classes and every economic condition. By teaching us “how to observe,” Martineau expands our abilities to recognize our mutual potential for cooperation and moral progress.

  II Martineau’s Intellectual Journey as a Social Theorist

  Martineau (1802-1876) turned to professional writingone of the few intellectual occupations open to women of her time-as her primary source of income. Without the structural benefits of college training (women were barred from institutions of higher learning) and handicapped by severe hearing loss (she required an ear trumpet to hear clearly), Martineau undertook pioneering studies-substantive, theoretical, and methodological studies-in what is now called sociology.11 The fact of her early sociological contribution is obscured in part by the multi-faceted character of her many activities during an era when “sociology” was yet to become a recognized word, let alone a discipline.

  She was a prolific writer and vigorous activist who undertook multitudes of wide-ranging and extraordinary projects.12 She was an ardent Unitarian, abolitionist, critic, feminist, social scientist, and-eventually-atheist. From middle class origins fallen on hard economic circumstances, she was eventually lionized by English society for her popular writings on political economy. Her writing topics included, among others, biography, disability, education, history, husbandry, legislation, manufacturing, mesmerism, occupational health, philosophy, political economy, religion, research techniques, slavery, sociology, and travel. These works appeared as monographs, novels, children’s books, tracts, journal articles, and poetry. As a journalist, she wrote more than a thousand newspaper articles. Her travels and research took her to America, Ireland, and the Middle East on long treks for months of inquiry. With each trip, she authored detailed reports on her observations. Martineau’s sociological insights are found throughout her massive bibliography. It is a large task to detail the precise contours of Martineau’s social scientific work and thought. Much work remains in this regard for future students of the history, theory, and development of sociology. What follows is a tentative outline of the epistemological structure of Martineau’s sociology.13

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  First-Person Anonymous

  Women Writers and Victorian Print Media, 1830–1870

  • Alexis Easley(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  25

  However, though Martineau’s liberalism in some ways constructed a limited role for the woman activist, it also laid the groundwork for a more militant feminism. As Zillah Eisenstein points out, ‘liberal feminism, containing the seeds of its own transformation in the contradictory nature of it as a political theory and practice, sets into motion this heightened political understanding’ (9). By encouraging women to engage in forms of gender-sensitive social observation and cultural criticism, Martineau helped to establish a proto-feminist consciousness among middle-class women that not only led them to demand equality within a patriarchally defined public sphere but also facilitated a questioning of patriarchy itself. Certainly Martineau’s contributions to debate over the Woman Question in the 1850s and ’60s demonstrate how her liberal individualism could be converted into more militant forms of social protest. The publication of Martineau’s essay, ‘Female Industry’, in the Edinburgh Review in 1859 established ‘female redundancy’ as a key issue in the movement to expand professional opportunities for women (Sanders, Reason 179). Likewise, Martineau’s anonymous leaders for the Daily News (1852-66) were influential in public debates on women’s issues as diverse as divorce rights and rational dress. Perhaps the most important of these contributions was a series of letters on the Contagious Diseases Acts, which ignited public protests led by Josephine Butler in the 1870s.26 As Judith Walkowitz has shown, these protests were part of a larger social movement that ‘facilitated middle-class women’s forceful entry into the world of publicity and politics, where they claimed themselves as part of a public that made sense of itself through public discourse’ (7). However, while on one hand the women’s movement was becoming increasingly ‘visible’, on the other hand it was becoming increasingly ‘invisible’ as women activists such as Martineau maneuvered behind the scenes.27

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  Wanderers

  A History of Women Walking

  • Kerri Andrews(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Reaktion Books

    (Publisher)

  FIVE Harriet Martineau For the first time in my life I am free to live as I please; & I please to live here. My life is now (in this season) one of wild roving, after my years of helpless sickness. I ride like a Borderer, – walk like a pedlar, – climb like a Mountaineer, – sometimes on excursions with kind & merry neighbours, – sometimes all alone for the day on the mountain. Harriet Martineau to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2 July 1845 H arriet Martineau was born in Norfolk, the sixth of eight children of a Unitarian minister – the descendant of Huguenot refugees from France – and his wife. Over the course of a fifty-year literary and intellectual career, Martineau built an international reputation as a sociologist, abolitionist, novelist and campaigner for women and the poor. She was also a professional journalist and travel writer whose accounts of her journeys to America and to Egypt and the Middle East were enormously popular, and she consulted with government about legal reforms and social policy in Britain. The range of her intellectual interests is intimidating, and the energy with which she pursued them exhausting; by the end of her life, she had published 35 books on topics from political economy to the methodology of sociology, to guided walks in the Lake District. Harriet Martineau was in her early forties when she wrote to her dear friend – the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson – in the summer of 1845, but in some ways, she had been alive for just a few months. For half a decade until the previous autumn, she had been confined to her bed in Tynemouth, a village on the coast near Newcastle, by a dangerous and persistent sickness that resisted all medical interventions

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  Frontiers in the Economics of Gender

  • Francesca Bettio, Alina Verashchagina(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Principles appeared in 1817. It seems that her book launched the fashion of governesses acquainted with Political Economy. The book was praised by all the major Classical Economists, including Ricardo, Malthus and Say, and was the only book on Political Economy which became a successful bestseller, reaching the 14th edition. Her readership was large, and by no means confined to young people and women. She also wrote a short book for the working class, in the belief that knowledge could improve its lot; the landowners and employers who appreciated her optimistic attitude and denial of class conflict were to buy it and distribute it among the poor, but the venture was not as successful as expected (Polkinghorn 1995:75).

  In the same line Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) published tales to illustrate the principles of Political Economy by means of examples taken from everyday life. She, too, was extremely successful. The first volume sold over 10,000 copies, compared with Dickens’s novels which rarely reached 3,000 copies. She was single, became economically independent and pursued a career as a scientific popularizer in many fields for the rest of her life. Marx despised her, like all other ‘vulgar’ economists who accepted the wage fund theory, but he adds sexism to his insults by choosing to call her an ‘old maid’ (Marx 1954:594). In her case too, attempts at rehabilitation have been made (Levy 2003), but whether or not Jane Marcet and Harriet Martineau were original thinkers is beyond the scope of this chapter. What matters here is the importance they both attached to the diffusion of science and their belief that it contributed to the betterment of humanity. They grasped the political implications of the prevailing theories (which they accepted by and large) and did not hesitate to use simple language and easy examples to make themselves understood. How are we to account for the fact that it was two women—but none of the men involved in it—who carried out the task of explaining the results that the new science of Political Economy had reached? And they were not alone. Millicent Fawcett was another great popularizer. Joan Robinson, too, apart from being a theorist in her own right, was also to some extent a popularizer. Can we detect in these women a particular need for ‘moral responsibility and social relevance’ that we do not find in their male contemporaries, as has been argued (Polkinghorn 1998: x; Kerr 2006)?

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