Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft (27 April 1759–10 September 1797) was the daughter of a rich farmer who inherited his fortune. Her father was known to have become violent towards her, her four siblings, and their mother when his farms failed. Mary Wollstonecraft was the second oldest in her family as well as the oldest female child. She left home at the age of nineteen to work and become independent.

Working in the English city of Bath, she developed a disliking for the upperclass and their social lives. In 1784 she experienced the near death of her sister Eliza who was also the victim of abuse at the hands of her husband. She escaped with her sister to London to preserve her life. Soon after, her good friend Fanny Blood, died of complications in childbirth. Wollstonecraft suffered depression following this and being in financial straights, she began to write her first book Thoughts on the Educators of Daughters.

Wollstonecraft was not only a writer, she was also an English philosopher and early feminist. She wrote a children's book as well as her two most famous books A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790), a response to the French Revolution, and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) which argued that women should have the same rights and education as men. She called for equal education for boys and girls, believing that education gives the tools necessary to compete with men in public and economic life.

She followed writers such as Catherine Macaulay who wroteLetters on Education in 1790, Thomas Paine, and John Locke. One of her most well-known books was "An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution (1794). She also wrote The Wrongs of Women, a novel telling of the confines and illusion of marriage and childrearing as the only happiness for women. She was revolutionary in arguing for education and the need for autonomy for women.

Wollstonecraft travelled to Paris in 1792 to take notes on the . While in Paris, she fell in love with Gilbert Imlay, and American who she later followed to London. She tried to commit suicide when their relationship ended but was rescued from the Thames. She wrote a book titled "Letter Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark" (1796) from a series of letters written to Imlay, to support their daughter Fany Imlay, born in 1974. In the same year, Wollstonecraft met up with an old acquaintance and philosopher named William Godwin, whom she later married. They bore a daughter on August 30,1797, whom they named Mary Wollstoncraft Godwin, who later became wife of Percy Shelley. Mary Wollstoncraft Godwin became Mary Shelley,the author of Frankenstein. Ironically, her mother Mary Wollstonecraft died after her birth and suffered a similar fate as her dearest friend Fanny Blood whose death inspired her fight for women's rights and her first book. Wollstonecraft died of complications after labor due to a blood clot. Her husband William Godwin published Memoirs of the Author of "A vindication of the Rights of Women" in memory of her in 1798.