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Unit 23: Harriet Martineau-On Women...

23.2 Adulthood Notes

During the 1820’s, the Martineau family went into economic decline when Thomas died. Despite
the imposing threat of poverty, Harriet felt a sense of freedom in facing the reality of earning her
own living. She was able to escape the confines of a middle class Victorian marriage when her
fiance, John Hugh Worthington, had a mental and physical collapse. She had no relationship after
this - stating later that “there is a power of attachment in me that has never been touched.” She
remained single and independent the rest of her life.
Harriet “successfully supported herself as an author in various forms, including essays, tracts,
reviews, novels, journal articles, travelogues, biographies, how-to manuals, newspaper columns,
histories, children’s stories and sociologically informed non-fiction”. By 1829 she had decided that
decided to commit herself to the profession, writing:
I have determined that my chief subordinate object in life shall henceforth be the cultivation of my
intellectual powers, with a view to the instruction of others by my writings. On this determination
I pray for the blessing of God...I believe myself possessed of no uncommon talents, and of not an
atom of genius; but as various circumstances have allowed me to think more accurately than some
women, I believe that I may so write on subjects of universal concern as to inform some minds and
stir up others...of posthumous fame I have not the slightest expectation or desire. To be useful in
my day and generation is enough for me.
Harriet’s first literary efforts were reverently religious due to her devout Unitarianism. The adoption
of Necessitarianism by Harriet, however, provided her with the intellectual bridge to a social
scientific perspective. In Economy Political of (1832-1834) she abandoned her ecclesiastical dogma
and began a relationship with social theory. In this book she used fiction to explicate the principles
of the new science of political economy. She lived in London during these years and became part
of a very influential and advanced literary circle. The circle included: Charles Babbage, Thomas
Carlyle, George Eliot, Florence Nightingale, Charles Dickens, Thomas Malthaus, William
Wodsworth, Charlotte Bronte, and Charles Darwin.
23.3 Martineau's Writings

In 1834 Harriet began a two year study and visit of the United States. She reported her findings in
Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838). These empirical studies emerged
at the same time as her foundational treatise on sociological data collection, How to Observe Morals
and Manners (1838). This book articulated the principles and methods of empirical social research.
Society in America is her most widely known work to sociologists in the U.S., addressing the
issues of methodological strategy confronted with ethnocentrism. In this work she compared
valued moral principles and observable social patterns, illustrating insightfully the distinctions
between rhetoric and reality. Her writings in How to Observe Morals and Manners offered a positivist
solution to the correspondence problem between inter subjectivity, verifiable observables, and
unobservable theoretical issues.
Before Marx, Engels or Weber, Martineau examined social class, religion, suicide, national character,
domestic relations, women’s status, criminology, and interrelations between institutions and
individuals. In 1848, after her trip to the Mid-East and the publication of her work: Eastern Life Past
and Present, Harriet openly embraced atheism. She lost much of the support in her family, especially
her younger brother James, a known cleric at the time. She also received a cold reception in the
populous but was supported by her circle of literary friends. William Lloyd Garrison wrote in her
support: I know what you have dared to be brave, what you have suffered, by the frank avowal
of what a hireling priesthood and a corrupt church have branded atheistical sentiments. Though
my belief in immortality is without peradventure, I desire to tell you that you skepticism, in lack
of evidence, on that point, has never altered my confidence in the goodness of your heart and the

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