Judith Sargent Stevens Murray (May 1, 1751 – June 9, 1820) was an early American advocate for women's rights, an essay writer, playwright, poet, and letter writer. She was one of the first American proponents of the idea of the equality of the sexes so that women, like men, had the capability of intellectual accomplishment and should be able to achieve economic independence.
Among many other influential pieces, her landmark essay "On the Equality of the Sexes" paved the way for new thoughts and ideas proposed by other feminist writers of the century.
Life and career
Early life and family
Judith Sargent was born on May 1, 1751, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, to Winthrop Sargent and Judith Saunders as the first of eight children. Her parents were Judith Saunders and Winthrop Sargent, and they were an established merchant family. The Sargent children were raised in the established Congregational First Parish Church. In the 1770s, Judith, her siblings, and her parents all converted to Universalism and helped to fund and create the first Universalist Church in the nation, installing John Murray as the first pastor.
The Sargent family was considered to be cultured, politically aware, and civically active. As a wealthy, ship-owning merchant family, Judith's parents were able to provide her and her siblings with an education that was considered top-notch at the time. For a woman in that era, her education was unusually thorough. Judith swayed from traditional gender norms by sharing a tutor with her brother, Winthrop Sargent, as he prepared for entry into Harvard College.
However, despite the tutoring, there were few opportunities for her to receive any formal education beyond reading and writing. Much of her knowledge was selftaught through the library in the merchant-class family home. She read history, philosophy, geography, and literature. Her deep interest in education and her family's support led her to write poetry from as young as nine years old. According to family legend, her father read Judith's "humble attempts at poetry" to family members, to make it clear he was incredibly proud of her talents. Although she considered herself as capable as her brother, her educational experience was far inferior to his. Thus, even as a young girl, she was painfully aware of the way her society circumscribed the aspirations of women.
Career accomplishments
Judith Sargent Murray began her early career covering a wide range of literary styles. Not only did Murray write over one hundred essays, including her landmark essay "On the Equality of the Sexes" in 1790, she also published a number of books, several poems, and two comic plays throughout the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Sargent published the first time in 1784 arguing that the political independence of the United States could provide the motivation for female self-reliance and economic independence. She complained that young women in the United States lacked the personal resources that would allow them to resist the marriage market. Eight years later, the widowed Murray remarried the Universalist minister John Murray and Sargent Murray published a series of essays from 1791 till 1794 in the Massachusetts Magazine, which she published in 1798 collected entitled The Gleaner. In these essays Sargent Murray was critical of fathers who did not provide for their own sons so that they could learn useful skills as they grew up. Sargent Murray advanced intense criticism against parents who "pointed their daughters" towards marriage and economic dependence.
The book was purchased by such prominent figures as George Washington, John Adams, Henry Knox, and Mercy Otis Warren. Sargent Murray was a staunch believer in improved educational opportunity for women. Her essays were important to the post-Revolution "Republican Motherhood" movement, a movement led by Abigail Adams and other female revolutionaries which aimed to produce intelligent and virtuous citizens required for the success of the new nation.