SOURCE: Myers, Mitzi. “Unmothered Daughter and Radical Reformer: Harriet Martineau's Career.” In The Lost Tradition: Mothers and Daughters in Literature, pp. 70-80. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1980.

In the following essay, Myers examines the connection between Martineau's private life and her writings.

“We have very little of correctly detailed domestic history, the most valuable of all as it would enable us to make comparisons. …”¹

Francis Place's remark anticipates a key concern of the new social historians, a concern of particular relevance to women, so much of whose history has hitherto been invisible because, until recently, it has consisted mostly of those female activists and writers who succeeded outside the home. However, careful exploration of the world of domestic experience not only illuminates the lives of ordinary women, but also places in a fresh perspective the achievement of those who made it in a man's world. Harriet Martineau...