Finding Margaret Fuller | Allison Pataki

We've all heard of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Horace Greeley and others associated with Transcendentalist school of thought, but I can't say I was familiar with Margaret Fuller who these aforementioned folks revered for her intellect and writings. This is her story. Margaret Fuller quite literally defined the start of the women's rights movement, years before suffrage and more than a century before #metoo. Her book, "Women in the Nineteenth Century," and countless articles published in periodicals were groundbreaking and highly influential in their day (I haven't read it but I'm curious). This book is a fictionalized version of her life, so the dialogue is largely invented by the author, but the woman was a writer and her thought were well-documented in a large number of articles and in reports of her activities to support women. Not surprisingly, she had to use a gender-neutral byline to even get articles published. The story has a sad ending (which you learn about at the beginning). As current political efforts are taking aim at some of the very rights Fuller fought for, it's a timely and insightful read. Why have we not heard as much about her as we have other Transcendentalists?