Margaret Fuller Ossoli: Autobiography (ePub)

Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1810-1850) received a broad education and early felt a deep interest in social questions. She learned French, German and the classics, and her associates in Cambridge were persons of culture, experience and advanced ideas. In 1833 the family removed to Groton, Mass., where she gave lessons to private classes in languages and other studies. In 1836 she went to Boston, where she taught Latin and French in A. Bronson Alcott's school, and taught private classes of girls in French, German and Italian. In 1837 she became a teacher in a private school in Providence, R. I., which was organized on Mr. Alcott's plan. She translated many works from the German and other languages. In 1839 she instituted in Boston her conversational class, which was continued for several years. She did much writing on subjects connected with her educational work. In 1840 she became the editor of "The Dial." which she managed for two years. Her contributions to the journal were numerous. Several volumes of translations from the German were brought out by her. In 1843 she went on a western tour with James Freeman Clarke and his artist-sister, and her first original work, "Summer on the Lakes," was the result of that trip. In 1844 she removed to New York City, where for two years she furnished literary criticisms for the "Tribune." In 1846 she published her volume. "Papers on Literature and Art." After twenty months of life in New York she went to Europe, she met in Italy, in 1847, Giovani Angelo, Marquis Ossoli, a man younger than she and of less intellectual culture, but a simple and noble man, who had given up his rank and station in the cause of the Roman Republic. They were married in 1847. After the fall of the republic it was necessary for them to leave Rome, and Madame Ossoli, desiring to print in America her history of the Italian struggle, suggested their return to the United States.