Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867)
Prolific Novelist & Biographer, of Boston and Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Her second novel Redwood (1824) saw her name spoken of in equal terms with James Fenimore Cooper who was then at the height of his fame. She was engaged to her father's friend, Harmanus Bleecker, the U.S. Minister to the Netherlands, but they never married and she remained single for the rest of her life. She famously said and lived by the principle that, “as slaves must be trained for freedom, so women must be educated for usefulness, independence, and contentment in single life.” Her stories helped shape American literature and society.
