Self-Made Women - Catharine Maria Sedgwick and Fanny Fern, masters of women's independence

12 2. SELF-MADE WOMAN 2.1 The Role of Women in Nineteenth-Century American Society “There can be no question that the present epoch is initiating an empire of the higher reason, of arts, affections, aspirations; and for that epoch the genius of woman has been reserved” 12 . This is what Thomas Wentworth Higginson declared in 1859 about his age, considered the time in which woman could obtain her emancipation since the world, in his opinion, was finally ready to welcome her genius, power of understanding, and freedom. He describes the past times as characterized by mere ignorance, muscles and “lower power of the understanding 13 ”, an era which was not ready for such a change, while the nineteenth century was the right time and ground to let women alter their position, with a consequent social and moral change. This was, in fact, an era of remarkable cultural and social transformations, which mostly involved women and their living conditions: many changes occurred both in England and America, were women were fighting for entering institutions of higher education, for the vote, rights over their children, obtaining better jobs, be writers, and so on. Everyone, but predominantly intellectuals and writers, started arguing about the place which women ought to have in society, until it became a big and debated issue by the name of “Woman Question”. It had a crucial role in a century in which many other changes occurred, such as revolutionary turmoil, imperialist expansion, industrialization, and political reforms. 12 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and the Alphabet, The Project Gutenberg eBook, 2004, p. 9. 13 Ivi, p. 47