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Harriet Martineau was born in 1802 into a large upper middle class English family. Most of Harriet's education was done at home, although early on, she had some exposure to subjects that were taught only to males. But, at the time, university study was barred to women. Harriet was forced to support herself early on as an adult after the death of her father and the end of the relationship between her and he husband. She felt free when she was faced with this challenge and did sucessfully support herself as an author. She wrote essays, novels, biographies, news columns, and more including many informed writings on sociology.
Martineau began a two-year study of the United States when she visited the country in 1834. She reported her findings of this trip in two sets of writings: Society in America and Retrospect of Western Travel. In 1837, Society of America was released. She used this work to compare moral principles and social patterns and it became her most well known work to sociologists in the United States. One year later in 1838, How to Observe Morals and Manners was released and examined the correspondence problem between intersubjectivity, verifiable observable, and unobservable theoretical issues and provided a positivist solution.
Harriett later took a trip to the Mid-East and in 1848 had a work published on it called, Eastern Life Past and Present. At this point, Martineau became an atheist and lost the support of many, including her family. Another writing that Harriet is most well known for was her translation in 1851 of Auguste Comte's Cours de philosophic positive into English. This translation allowed positivism to be introduced into American thought.
Throughout her life, Harriet Martineau wrote more than 1,500 columns and pioneered methodological studies that are now known as sociology. Unfortunately, because of the male academic system at this time, most of her writings on sociology, literature, etc. were forgotten.
Harriett Martineau died of an illness in 1876, but can now be remembered as the first woman sociologist.
Copright 2001 Jason Smith
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