Everybody knows Mary Wollstonecraft, yeah? At the very least, they’ll have heard of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, her seminal piece of literature arguing for gender equality. Published in 1792, it had revolutionary impact on the world, and is lauded often for its progressive (for the time) ideals.
What if I told you that Wollstonecraft wasn’t the first? That nearly two years before, an American woman had published the most daring feminist work of the time? That, in fact, she was one of the greatest writers in America during the colonial period?
She was. And her name was Judith Sargent Murray.
Murray was born on May 1, 1751, the daughter of a wealthy merchant family in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The eldest of eight, Judith was rather fortunate in her upbringing: though her family did not send her to school beyond literacy learning, she was allowed unrestricted access to the ample family library. Throughout her childhood, she would teach herself history, philosophy, geography, literature, and everything in between. At the age of nine, she began writing poetry, a hobby that her father was extremely proud of.
Beyond her voracious learning, though, Murray carried on as women were expected to in the 18th century. At the age of 18, she married John Stevens, a ship captain. Though the two did not have children of their own, they adopted his orphaned nieces and her cousin. Unfortunately, by the end of the Revolution, Stevens’s business had suffered so horribly that he was forced to flee to the West Indies, abandoning his family without a word; shortly after, he was caught and imprisoned, and would die in debtor’s prison. This left Murray an impoverished widow, one who would frantically search for ways to pay off debt collectors for the rest of her life.
In 1788, at the age of 37, Murray married John Murray, a Unitarian minister and friend of her father’s. Eight years before, the Sargents had gifted Murray land on which to build the first Unitarian/Universalist Meetinghouse in America; since then, John Murray had grown in influence. With her new husband by her side, Murray joined the circles of the colonial elite: the two held meetings with the likes of George and Martha Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Catherine Littlefield Greene, among others.
Here, then, is where Judith Sargent Murray’s writing career found its hold. Between 1788 and 1790, she wrote primarily poetry and essays, all under one of many pseudonyms (most frequently “Honora,” “Martesia,” and “Constantia”). They began to find footing in her home state, citizens grappling to uncover who the genius poet was. Still, Murray did not disclose her true identity.
Then came March 1790. In searching for her next publication, in frustration with the world surrounding her, Murray revisited an essay that she had penned a decade earlier. Entitled “The Sexes,” it addressed the educational and sociopolitical gender disparity between men and women, and argued against its supposed inherency; originally only circulated amongst friends and compatriot intellectuals, Murray came to the conclusion that she must publish it. And so she did, under “Constantia,” in two installations. Newly edited and titled “On the Equality of the Sexes,” it sent shock waves through the fledgling nation.
Well. Sort of. It’s worth noting here that, though what Murray said was certainly progressive for colonial America, her advocacy was for education that wouldn’t disrupt traditional gender roles. Her argument was similar to that of the Republican Mother: women should be properly educated in order to be happier partners to their husbands and more effective mothers to their sons. Not great in terms of the basis of gender disparity, but certainly revolutionary, and one little step in the right direction.
That emphasis could very well have come from her own personal issues. Murray struggled with infertility: she had been unable to conceive with Stevens, and had similar issues with her second husband. Her later age likely exacerbated the problem, and she often felt like a failure. In 1789, the son she had finally carried to full term only lived a few hours. Two years later, following a tumultuous pregnancy, a dangerous birth, and the fear that neither mother nor baby would make it, she gave birth to a daughter, Julia Marie. Thank the gods, they both lived. This does, to the point, make it unsurprising that she would fixate on motherhood: it was something she had always personally wanted, we know thanks to her journals, and her struggle to become one was her biggest strife.
Two years after the publication of “On the Equality of the Sexes,” Murray was offered a column in Massachusetts Magazine. She accepted, and adopted what would become her iconic pen name: “The Gleaner.” This allowed her to become the family’s breadwinner, earning enough money to keep her little family afloat and begin to pay off debts. The following year, the Murrays moved to Boston. In 1795, her play, The Medium, was the first by an American playwright to be produced on stage. In 1798, she published a complete collection of The Gleaner’s columns to great acclaim: she was a genius marketing mind, recruiting 800 presale subscribers and securing endorsements from the likes of Washington and Adams to ensure profit.
Her very existence proved her argument against the then-common misconception of inherently inferior brains in women. She herself practiced what she preached, educating her daughter at home until she was old enough to be sent to an academy. In 1802, she cofounded a school for young women in Dorchester, Massachusetts, alongside Judith Saunders and Clementine Beach. Her writing was not her only way of teaching, after all.
In 1809, John Murray suffered a stroke, leaving him unable to fend for himself for his remaining six years. In 1815, he was finally offered his respite, and his wife completed and published his memoirs after his passing.
Following her beloved husband’s death, Murray quieted her writings and moved to Natchez, Mississippi, where newly married Julia resided. She died there on July 6, 1820, at the age of 69.
Though her letters were found and published in the mid-1980s, so few know of Judith Sargent Murray and her dedication to early feminism. She was smart, she was kind, she was strategic, she was maternal. May we all know her name now.
“Yet cannot I their sentiments imbibe,
Who this distinction to the sex ascribe,
As if a woman's form must needs enrol,
A weak, a servile, an inferiour soul;
And that the guise of man must still proclaim,
Greatness of mind, and him, to be the same:
Yet as the hours revolve fair proofs arise,
Which the bright wreath of growing fame supplies;
And in past times some men have sunk so low,
That female records nothing less can show.
But imbecility is still confin’d,
And by the lordly sex to us consign'd;
They rob us of the power t'improve,
And then declare we only trifles love;
Yet haste the era, when the world shall know,
That such distinctions only dwell below;
The soul unfetter'd, to no sex confin’d,
Was for the abodes of cloudless day designíd.
Mean time we emulate their manly fires,
Though erudition all their thoughts inspires,
Yet nature with equality imparts,
And noble passions, swell e’en female hearts.”
- Judith Sargent Murray, Prologue to “On the Equality of the Sexes” -
Sources/For More Info: “Judith Sargent Murray” by Dr. Debra Michaels, “The Gleaner: Judith Sargent Murray” from What’s Her Name, The Sargent House Museum, “Judith Sargent Murray’s On the Equality of the Sexes (1790)” from The Public Domain Review