Margaret Fuller New York: Greeley and McElroth 1845. Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature.

The Woman's Movement in America has its origins in this period too. Genealogically its central branch—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, and so on—grew out of the Abolitionist Movement, and addressed its efforts to specific political reforms like suffrage. Margaret Fuller was never in that camp, but her Woman in the Nineteenth Century was the first American book devoted to the question of woman's place and rights. It was the final product of Fuller's own participation in the unorganized Transcendentalist movement. Starting from the idea that the divine spirit is in all consciousness, Fuller argues for complete equality between the sexes: "I have believed and intimated that this hope would receive an ampler fruition than ever before in our own land. And it will do so if this land carry out the principles from which sprang our national life. I believe that at present women are the best helpers of one another. Let them think; let them act; till they know what they need."

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