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Would you like a weekly "open-house" at a friend's place, say on Wednesday evenings? I would. In the early 1840s if I were in Boston, I could go to 13 West Street where the Peabodys lived and have just that experience. The three Peabody sisters there are Elizabeth, Mary and Sophia. Regular guests include Horace Mann, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. They discuss ideas like how to widen daily life to include spiritual connections to ideas and people.
The book that tells more about these topics for discussion is "The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism," by Megan Marshall, published in 2005. It was recommended to me by Paula Nemes at the Marshall-Lyon County Library. She knows well my interest in that time period.
Another favorite method of communication for the Peabody sisters and for me is letters. When Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne were courting for three years before their marriage, they wrote more than 100 letters to each other. My husband and I have an old suitcase full of letters we wrote during our courtship from 1958 to 1963. Not long ago I received a letter from another Independent columnist Ted Rowe, who recommended some book titles. It was a highlight of that day. Elizabeth wrote letters to William Wordsworth and received letters from him.
It took Megan Marshall 20 years to research and write the book. She writes about the family the Peabody sisters was born into -- their mother's and father's families. The mother was very intelligent, but she described her life this way: "I wear petticoats and can never be Governor . . . so I may as well be quiet" (p. 15). When she was 4 years old, she read from her father's collection of Shakespeare folios. No wonder she encouraged her daughters. When the daughters were young, the family read "King Lear" aloud.
Elizabeth, the oldest daughter (b 1804 d 1894), owned a bookstore in Boston on West Street, beginning in the early 1840s. The home of her parents and sisters was on the upper floor. When the Peabody children were growing up, the family lived in Cambridge, Lancaster and Salem. The father was a medical doctor, but his talents were limited. There was never enough money for the family's needs; Elizabeth helped the family with money she made.
Elizabeth is probably best known for her work in the development of kindergartens in the United States, building on ideas that came from Germany. She is credited online with opening the first kindergarten in Boston on 1860. However, people during the early and mid 1800s knew her as a single woman always focused on books and ideas. Before she owned the bookstore, she was often a teacher. She helped Emerson publish "The Dial," and one of her many articles could be read in the journal.
When Elizabeth was 21 years old in 1825, she shook hands with the Marquis de Lafayette when they were both present at the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the monument at Bunker Hill.
Author Marshall writes in great detail about the sisters' friends, travels, and sad times up until Mary's marriage in 1843 to Horace Mann. She had waited for this for 10 years. He was a widower and active in politics. Mary (b 1806 d 1887) was the second daughter -- the prettiest, according to the author. She was similar to Elizabeth in her interest in teaching and writing books. She wrote "The Flower People," a textbook about seasonal plants.
Sophia (b 1809 d 1871) was an artist, beginning with sketches and paintings, and later she formed sculptures and was well-known for her sculpture of Laura Bridgman, a deaf-blind child. When Charles Dickens came to America in 1842, he met the child.
Sophia's and Nathaniel Hawthorne's long courtship was partly because of her illnesses and partly because Hawthorne's family was not in favor of their marriage. Sophia had migraines much of her life (Marshall quotes from Oliver Sacks' books), and stays in her bedroom when she is ill. Elizabeth was also interested in Nathaniel, so when it became clear that he would marry her sister Sophia, Elizabeth went through a hard time.
Sophia and Nathaniel lived in Concord, in a house referred to as The Old Manse (picture on p. 429). It seems they had an idyllic life, with gardens and an orchard of fruit trees. Penobscot Indians camped nearby to sell their handmade baskets.
The 57 illustrations in the book add much to the story of life in the early to mid 1800s: sketches, paintings, photographs, silhouettes.
My summary brings up men who are very well-known for their writings in the 1800s -- Emerson and Hawthorne, and the politician and educator Horace Mann. We also read about a minister at the Federal Street Church in Boston -- the Rev. William Ellery Channing.
Just writing their names down brings to my mind many classes I took in college as an English major. But I didn't study the Peabody sisters until this year. Marshall writes that they were some of the earliest transcendentalists. "How beautifully nature educates the soul" (p. 278) was written by Sophia.