Martineau, Harriet, 1802-1876

Harriet Martineau (12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist. She wrote from a sociological, holistic, religious and feminine angle, translated works by Auguste Comte, and, rare 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 the role of the home in domestic life as well as key political, religious, and social institutions. 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 studied world-wide, particularly at American institutions of higher education such as Northwestern University. When unveiling a statue of Martineau in December 1883 at the Old South Meeting House in Boston, Wendell Phillips referred to her as the "greatest American abolitionist". Martineau's statue was donated to Wellesley College in 1886.