During the early republic, Judith Sargent Murray published numerous essays and commentaries on REPUBLICANISM, especially with regard to women’s rights. Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1751, Sargent was the daughter of the wealthy shipping merchant, Captain Winthrop Sargent. Studying with her brother, she received an unusually comprehensive EDUCATION for a female during this time period. In 1769, Judith Sargent married sea captain, John Stevens, also of Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, he was killed at sea in 1768 while sailing in the WEST INDIES.
The prevalence of revolutionary ideas in the 1770s and 1780s inspired Judith Stevens to write essays on the role of women in the new republic. In 1784, under the pseudonym Constantia, she published her first essay “Desultory Thoughts upon the Utility of Encouraging a Degree of Self-Complacency, Especially in Female Bosoms,” in the Boston magazine, Gentleman and Lady’s Town and Country Magazine. She argued that women needed both a strong sense of themselves and a thorough education to resist rushing into marriage to merely better their social status. Through education, women could develop sound judgment and intellectual competence so that they might become better citizens and, more importantly, better mothers to the future leaders of the new nation.
In 1788 Judith Stevens married the Reverend John Murray who had moved to Gloucester in 1774 to serve as minister for the Universalist church. Through Murray, Judith developed a devout interest in Universalism and its principles. She accompanied her new husband on his various preaching tours, often keeping written accounts of their experiences. In 1790 the Massachusetts Magazine featured the first of many poems submitted to the magazine by Murray—she later published poems in the Boston Weekly Magazine and Boston Magazine. She began a column in the Massachusetts Magazine, which ran from February 1792 to August 1794 under the title “The Gleaner.” Murray’s column offered insights on the political questions of the day, particularly those regarding women’s rights. She argued that “The [female] sex should be taught to depend on their own efforts, for the procurement of an establishment in life.” Murray stressed that women needed access to a good education to become model republican citizens. She fervently promoted the idea of republican motherhood.
In addition, Murray wrote two plays: “The Medium, or A Happy Tea Party” (1795) and “The Traveller Returned” (1796). Unfortunately, her plays met with little public success, critically or economically. In 1798 these plays and a number of her essays from her column were collected and published in three volumes under the title The Gleaner. As Reverend Murray’s health declined, she gathered her husband’s letters and papers together for the publication of his Letters, and Sketches of Sermons (3 volumes, 181213), adding additional chapters to his autobiography after his death in 1815. Judith Sargent Murray established herself as one of the preeminent voices on women’s rights and responsibilities in the early republic. Murray died at her daughter‘s home in Natchez, Mississippi, on July 6, 1820.
See also WOMEN’S RIGHTS and STATUS.
Further reading: Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); Sheila Skemp, Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documents (Boston: Bedford Books, 1998).
—Linda English
World History
