Abakoss

ya

MY Peer Comment Assignments

Caitlin (SANDBOX) (Theodor Geiger)
Alexandra (SANDBOX) (Herbert Blumer)

articles i might want to work on.

thinkers

harriet martineau, the sociologist

schools of thought

social deviance

outline

Early life
London and the United States
Newcastle and Tynemouth
Ambleside
Mesmerism
Economics and social sciences
Self verdict

want to edit and elaborate

elaborate on her early life- her transition from fiction to non-fiction, home life, illness, death. post-humous reviews of her writing.
edit the writing already there. make it less "highschool".
go in depth about works: Society in America, Household Education, Autobiography -own sections? Mesmerism.

- Finding that some of my sources are contradicting each other, different years for the same thing. different person for the same quote/event etc... Trying to sort that out.

- It's also quite a long article for only have one source.. finding myself rewriting majority of it.

Some Notes

1) Letters of Harriet Martin - H.I. Bell

supported secularism,"In the present state of the religious world, Secularism ought to flourish. What an amount of sin and woe might and would then be extinguished." (21)

supported Darwin's Theory of Evolution because was not based in theology.

2) Mothering and Mesmerism in the Life of Harriet Martineau - Diana Postlethwaite

produced 35 books, multitude of essays

earned enough to be supported by her writing

Illustrations of Political Economy (1832-34)

       - multi-volume- first piece to receive widespread acclaim.
       - fiction, storytelling tutorial on political economists (Malthus, Ricardo, Bentham etc) for gen.public

Martineau wise in the fields of sociology, fiction, travel, history, philosophy, economics, feminism

believed women needed to be educated, wrote on Contagious Diseases Act

Autobiography 1877 but written in 1855

        - rare for a woman to publish an autobiography, let alone one secular in nature
        - Linda Peterson on Martineau's Autobiography - necessitarianism, 'dispassionate', 'philosophic to the core' =masculine
        - in depth about childhood experiences
        - very close with her brother, James. "Brothers are to sisters what sisters can never be to brothers as objects of engrossing and devoted affection" (Martineaup587)
        - expressed feeling deprived of affection, especially from her mother growing up as a child.

1839(1840?) diagnosed with uterine tumor, confined to sick room. (p589)

        - Considered herself psychosomatic (medical belief of the times relating the uterus with emotions/hysteria. 
        - had symptoms of hysteria: loss of taste, smell. partial deafness throughout life may have contributed
        - The telescope in her room was her connection to the outside world while in the sickroom at Tynemouth.(p602)
        - 1845, Miraculously cured, attributed it to mesmerism.
                  ^according to Valeria Pichanik: Her recovery was "probably associated with a shift in the position of the tumor so that it no longer oppressed the abdominal organs. But because these physical improvements were the first encouraging signs of recovery in five long years, and because they coincided with Martineau's first mesmeric treatment, she quite naturally ascribed her cure to mesmerism."(p604)
        - wrote her autobiography after she recovered and moved to the Lake District.

Mesmerism- 'cured' by most famous mesmerist at the time, Spencer T. Hall

        - Martineau's mother was against mesmerism. Once she was cured, Harriet cut off ties with her. (p604)
        - typically performed my men -"active figures, dominant, aggressive." (p605)
        - Ironically, Hall had no success mesmerizing Martineau, in the end it was Harriet's maid who "tried the passes" and managed to reach Harriet. Her treatment from then on was conducted by the maid.
        - The position was also interchangeable between Harriet's maids (p605)

wrote 3 books during her illness: Crofton Boys, 1844 children's novel, 1844 Life in the Sickroom: Essays by an Invalid, 1843 autobiographical reflection on invalidism, Household Education, 1848 handbook on raising and education children and the 'proper' way to be a mother

Life in the Sickroom- series of essays embracing womanhood. written during illness. Dedicated to Elizabeth Barrett. "an outpouring of feeling to an idealized female alter ego, both professional writer and professional invalid- and utterly unlike the women in her own family."(p601) During a kind of public break from her mother. This book was a proclamation of her independence.

repeatedly referred to the importance of sewing throughout her life. "When I was young it was not thought proper for young ladies to study... with pen in hand. Young ladies... were expected to sit down in the parlour to sew."(p591)

her father's business failed in 1829 - she was 27 yrs. old, it allowed her to step out of feminine propriety in order to earn a living.

        - began selling articles to Monthly Repository. grew success. Made deal to compose monthly volumes for 24 months analyzing various political economy agendas. 
        - first volume of Illustrations of Political Economy-1832 (p593)

Household Education written 1848

        -  "i go further than most persons... in desiring thorough practice in domestic occupations, from an early age, for girls."(p607)
        - "the natural desire and natural faculty for housewifery" are essential to female education.' (p607)
        - her mother served as the antithesis to a good nurturing parent as described in Household Education. a mother must be warm and nurturing.

Society in America - 1837

        - angered response to the state of women's education
        - "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."(p597)

Novelist Margaret Oliphant on Martineau "as a born lecturer and politician she was less distinctively affected by her sex than perhaps any other, male or female, of her generation."

Robert K Webb on Martineau - "essentially masculine nature."

Martineau's mother "was the daughter of a grocer and sugar refiner, married a norwich manufacturer" raised eight children. Believed in educating her children.

        - despite urging both daughters and sons to be well-read "she was strongly averse to open bluestockingism, with a sharp eye for feminine propriety and good manners. Her daughters could never be seen in public with pen in hand."(p591)
        - Harriet had a distant relationship with her mother. "abandonment to a wet nurse."(p591)

After success with Monthly Repository, Harriet's mother joined her in London.

        - Uneasy relationship. struggle to be good daughter/woman/respected writer
        - Martineau became sick. 5 years at Tynemouth- agoraphobic- "literally enacting the constraining metaphors of gender:"Being homebound is a major part of the process of becoming feminine. In this interior setting she is taught the home arts of working, serving, and cleaning, as well as the rehearsals for the role of mothering. She sees her mother... doing these things. They define femininity for her."(p595)  
        - while the agoraphobia released her from the role of being caretaker for her mother it highlighted her childhood pangs of balancing her mother's wishes with her writing ability.

3) Harriet Martineau and the Reform of the Invalid in Victorian England by Alison Winter

wrote Deerbrook, her first novel. about a failed love between a doctor and his sister-in-law, 1838. (p602)

in 1839, diagnosed with a the uterine tumor, immobile and confined to a couch with her family. she stayed there for some time until finally purchasing a house and a nurse to aid her.

writing Life in the Sickroom, considered to be one of her most read yet underrated works. (p604)

        - upset evangelical readers. "thought it dangerous in 'its supposition of self-reliance.'" (p607)
        - her work was undermined. Critics dismissed it choosing to believe if she was an invalid her mind as well must be sick and not taken seriously. (p608)
        - she turned the traditional patient/doctor relationship on it's head by asserting control over her space even in sickness. The sickroom was her space. Being a women especially added to the negative reactions to her lifestyle while being ill. 
        - British and Foreign Medical Review dismissed Martineau's work claiming all the above^. For a woman to be in a position of control, especially in sickness was unheard of. The British and Foreign Medical Review pushed for treatments such as 'unconditional submission' where one follows blindly the advice of their doctor. They had a huge issue to Martineau holding any sort of 'authority to Britain's invalids.' (p609)

MESMERISM- national interest in mesmerism around the 1840's (p609)

        - also known as 'animal magnetism'. "loosely grouped set of practices in which one person influenced another through a variety of personal actions, or through the direct influence of one mind on another mind. Mesmerism was designed to make invisible forces augment the mental powers of the mesmeric object." (p609)
        - Martineau's brother performed mesmeric treatments on Martineau in 1844. She immediately started recuperating in every way, even her deafness was better to a degree.

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