Harriet Martineau (12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist often seen as the first female sociologist. She wrote from a sociological, holistic, religious and feminine angle, translated works by Auguste Comte, and, rarely for a woman writer at the time, earned enough to support herself. The young Princess Victoria enjoyed her work and invited her to her 1838 coronation. Martineau advised "a focus on all [society's] aspects, including key political, religious, and social institutions". She applied thorough analysis to women's status under men. The novelist Margaret Oliphant called her "a born lecturer and politician... less distinctively affected by her sex than perhaps any other, male or female, of her generation."
Her lifelong commitment to the abolitionist movement has seen Martineau's celebrity and achievements remain particularly relevant to American institutions of higher learning such as Northwestern University with its Methodist foundations. When unveiling a statue of Martineau in December 1883 at the Old South Church in Boston, Wendell Phillips referred to her as the "greatest American abolitionist". Martineau's statue was gifted to Wellesley College in 1886.
Early life
Born in Norwich, England, Harriet Martineau was the sixth of the eight children of Thomas, her father who was a textile manufacturer. A highly respected Unitarian, he was deacon of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich from 1797. Harriet's mother, Elizabeth Rankin was the daughter of a sugar refiner and grocer. Harriet's five older siblings included two sisters and three brothers. In age order their names were, Elizabeth, Thomas, Henry, Robert and Rachel Ann. Harriet's two younger siblings included her brother James who she was very close with, and the youngest of the eight, Ellen.
The Martineau family was of French Huguenot ancestry and professed Unitarian views. Her uncles included the surgeon Philip Meadows Martineau (1752–1829), whom she had enjoyed visiting at his nearby estate, Bracondale Lodge, and businessman and benefactor Peter Finch Martineau. Martineau was closest to her brother James, who became a philosopher and clergyman in the tradition of the English Dissenters. According to the writer Diana Postlethwaite, Harriet's relationship with her mother was strained and lacking affection, which contributed to views expressed in her later writing. Martineau claimed her mother abandoned her to a wet nurse.
Harriet's childhood was rather different compared to any other ordinary child. Her family was financially comfortable and they were close friends with the Gurney family of Earlham Hall, Norfolk. Harriet's father, Thomas, owned the leasehold of the Gurney's home, Gurney Court, Harriet's birth place. The family's wealth remained intact until around 1825–26 when the stock market and banking system collapsed. As previously mentioned Harriet and her mother's relationship was quite hostile early on. It was a traditional gesture for mothers to hire wet nurses for their children, especially if they could not nurse their child by themselves. However the specific wet nurse that Harriet's mother Elizabeth had hired for Harriet could not produce a sufficient amount of milk for an infant. This left Harriet starved for the first few weeks of her life, which is what Mrs. Martineau had attributed all of Harriet's future ailments to.
Harriet's ideas on domesticity and the "natural faculty for housewifery", as described in her book Household Education (1848), stemmed from her lack of nurture growing up. It was found that affection shown toward Harriet by her mother was quite rare. In fact, there have been findings that suggested that Harriet had imagined angels coming to take her away, which was thought to symbolize her wishing to find a way to escape her mother's reign through suicide.
Although their relationship was better in adulthood, Harriet saw her mother as the antithesis of the warm and nurturing qualities which she knew to be necessary for girls at an early age. Her mother urged all her children to be well read, but at the same time opposed female pedantics "with a sharp eye for feminine propriety and good manners. Her daughters could never be seen in public with a pen in their hand". Despite this conservative approach to raising girls, Martineau was not the only academically successful daughter in the family; her sister Rachel ran her own Unitarian Academy with artist Hilary Bonham Carter as one of her students. Martineau's mother strictly enforced proper feminine behavior, pushing her daughter to "hold a sewing needle" as well as the (hidden) pen.