1758-1797
Feminist

The Birth of Feminism. In the revolutionary fervor that swept the Atlantic world during the late eighteenth century, women began to demand the same rights that liberal revolutionaries had claimed for men. The American Revolution of 1776, the French Revolution of 1789, and the Haitian Revolution of 1791 had all been inspired by the liberal Enlightenment philosophies of the eighteenth century that questioned whether a tiny aristocracy should rule over an entire people without their consent. The United Kingdom was also in the throes of debates about government. As the aristocracy's domination of Parliament came under intense scrutiny, British women joined the cry for the same "natural rights" of freedom, property, and the pursuit of happiness that the philosophers and revolutionaries demanded for men.

Early Years. Mary Wollstonecraft was born in the Spitalfields district of London. On her grandfather's death in 1765, her father used a substantial inheritance...