«.... that she, the other half of the same thought, the other chamber of the heart of life, needs now take her turn in the full pulsation, and that improvement in the daughters will best aid in the reformation of the sons of this age». 1

July 19th, 1850. At last, the coast is near, Fire Island's outline appears, just a few miles from New York. The voyage from Livorno, begun in May, has been an endless ordeal: stuck in Gibraltar for quarantine, the captain dead of smallpox. But as the ship approaches the coast, the sea turns violent and the merchant freighter Elizabeth is no match for the wind’s fury; it strikes a sandbar, its hull shattered. On board is the Ossoli family: Margaret, the American journalist, her husband, the Marquis Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, and their baby son, Angelino, not yet two. Forced to abandon the ship, all three vanish in the waves. Margaret Fuller's life is tragically cut short at forty, but her story still deserves to be told.

Margaret was the well-educated, polyglot daughter of a famous Boston lawyer who had personally overseen her education, subjecting her to continuous and rigorous study and verifying her progress each evening with exacting oral exams from a very tender age. She started learning Latin at six; by seven she was reading texts by Virgil and Ovid. And then Cervantes, Molière, Goethe, philosophy, history, modern languages. The price paid for such a rigorous education was high: from childhood she suffered from insomnia, eyesight problems, and frequent, severe migraines. But after such an effort, what she called her energetic, masculine and cultured side was complete: at 18, she was the only female scholar among many men, her worth was recognised even at the prestigious Harvard. If we want a complete picture of her peculiar and composite personality, to this we should add her proudly claimed “Americanness”, inextricably linked to the Declaration of Independence of 1776 (the foundation of all theories of equality), and her affiliation to the Transcendentalist Movement, with its emphasis on the Emersonian virtues of self-reliance and self-impulse.

1840, Boston. At thirty years old, Fuller published Woman in the Nineteenth Century, the first book written in America to speak bluntly about equality between men and women. Here is an excerpt:

«...the time is come when Eurydice is to call for an Orpheus, rather than Orpheus for Eurydice;....that she, the other half of the same thought, the other chamber of the heart of life, needs now take her turn in the full pulsation, and that improvement in the daughters will best aid in the reformation of the sons of this age».

Every copy of the book was sold out in a week: 1,500 copies, best-seller numbers for the time, with pirated copies even circulating in Europe. Yet it was judged «absurd, immoral, scandalous.» Too disruptive and revolutionary to be accepted. Fuller was labelled arrogant, pedantic, aggressive, unpleasant, masculine. Edgar Allan Poe, while admitting her genius, called her an «ill-tempered old maid.»

Many, men and women both, felt threatened by her ideas and her writings. There was unease even within her closest and friendly intellectual circle, that of the Transcendentalists, a hotbed of writers and thinkers who would make the literary and philosophical history of America. Ralph Waldo Emerson, H.D. Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa Alcott: they were all actively singing her praises, but also, after her tragic and premature death, ready to rewrite her biography in a reassuring key. So much so that Hawthorne himself was seen wandering on the beach of Fire Island, immediately after the shipwreck, intent on picking up the papers returned from the sea. Was it perhaps the fear of this woman's words that induced even the great Emerson (Dean of American Literature) to destroy many of Margaret's letters and papers?

With this censorship, these powerful men were able to manipulate and control her public image, even to this day. What if she had lived for another 40 years? Some even argued that her premature death was a blessing in disguise, as it prevented her from the further possible scandals she might have caused with her pen (another great Transcendentalist sage, Octavius B. Frothingham, wrote: «it was just as well so»).

This is why remembering her is a must.

In addition to her important role in shaping American feminism, Fuller was also a pioneering woman in journalism, the first to create a “book-ray” of the West, and the first to work for publications like the «New York Daily Tribune» and «The Dial Magazine», the nation's first literary magazine. She also broke new ground as the first female foreign correspondent, sent abroad to report on the wave of revolutions sweeping across Europe. A pioneer in literary criticism, she was also the first to translate Goethe's works for American audiences. Furthermore, she was the first to expose and campaign for improved conditions for women in New York's prisons, asylums and other institutions. She also organized educational sessions for women, asserting that «women did have minds» (and this was also a revolution).

While in Europe, she sent her dispatches back home, describing and observing every facet of life in the Old Continent: from the social anxieties of the era to the living conditions of coal miners. She interviewed major literary figures of the time: Thomas Carlyle, George Sand, Wordsworth, De Quincey. She also sent back to her homeland some memorable war chronicles of The Revolutions of 1848 in Italy. It was in Rome, during the glorious days of the Roman Republic, that she realised writing was no longer enough.

The encounter with Cristina di Belgioioso was a key moment for her. Their meeting may have been facilitated by Mary Clarke or Giuseppe Mazzini, or perhaps by another close friend they shared, the Marchioness Costanza Arconati Visconti. Cristina di Belgioioso was deeply impressed by Fuller, and likely invited her to lead the Fatebenefratelli hospital on the Tiber Island. Here, Fuller met a young Englishwoman who had interrupted her European tour specifically to stop in Rome and help: it was Florence Nightingale. In Rome, 28-year-old Nightingale was determined to dedicate her life to the care of the sick and wounded, becoming the founder of modern nursing.

Very little is known about the meeting between the two, but one thing is clear: at this hospital, Fuller anticipated the reorganisation of military hospitals that Nightingale would later implement during the Crimean War in 1854.

Amidst all the turmoil, something unexpected occurred: Margaret fell in love. It was a love that she herself considered inappropriate. While visiting St Peter's Basilica, she met the Marquis Ossoli, nine years younger than her, Catholic, noble but penniless. Two people could not be more different. Nevertheless, they chose to pursue this love, and soon came Angelino. Motherhood was a shocking experience, full of worries, but also joy. Fuller’s letters expressed feelings and anxieties that could have been written today. A woman dedicated to her work and politics, attempting to achieve the American utopia in a Risorgimento-era Italy, she found herself a fearful, even "cowardly" mother, unable to quell her worries, both for her own future and for that of her child. Her maternal body simply longed to merge with Angelino, to the point of self-annihilation.2 Once again, the solution was upstream, beyond all convention. Whoever decreed that the husband must be the sole provider? Rome had fallen; the Ossolis travelled to Florence and then Livorno, where on 17 May they boarded the Elizabeth, bound for a more peaceful America. There, the Marquis would take care of their child and Margaret would support the family continuing her writings and publications (she worked on her History of the Roman Republic during the voyage). She had the potential to become an inspiration to many. If only the sandbanks of Fire Island and a stormy sea had not stopped her.


Translated by Alessia Tavaroli.
1 Woman in the nineteenth century, 1845, New York: Greeley & McElrath, p. 13.

2 Scacchi, Anna. "Margaret Fuller's search for the maternal." Margaret Fuller: Transatlantic Crossings in a Revolutionary Age, 2007, University of Wisconsin Press, p. 66-96.