27 The Fuller Biographies from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

In researching and writing my book on Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi and the unification of Italy (A Man Of Action Saving Liberty: A Novel Based On The Life Of Giuseppe Garibaldi)  I re-discovered the first American female war correspondent – Margaret Fuller — who I had first met in a college course on the Transcendentalists. I was once again fascinated by a life lived purposefully.

Then I found Tammy Rose’s podcast on the Transcendentalists – Concord Days – and was delighted when she asked me to guest for a discussion of Fuller’s work in Italy as both a journalist – and a nurse. — Rosanne

27 The Fuller Biographies from Concord Days: Margaret Fuller in Italy [Video]

Watch this entire presentation

Concord Days sends love to Margaret Fuller on the anniversary of her death in 1850.

The conversation focuses on Margaret’s exciting days in ITALY!

Dr. Rosanne Welch takes us through her adventures and enthusiastically reminds us what she was like when she was living her best life!

Transcript:

Tammy: So do you want to talk about some of the biographies and stuff that originated after she passed and how you know those versions of her might like the older versions the contemporary versions might not be so accurate?

Rosanne: I think that’s very true and of course, as you said earlier that’s true in so much of our history. Someone decided what we should share, what was acceptable, and you could — I think from Emerson’s point of view, I understand that he wanted people to love his friend. So he was he was filtering out what he thought would get in their way of understanding how great she was but then of course the next guy reads that book and only reports that much and that much. I mean it’s true also of the various iterations of the Diary of Anne Frank. Her father only lets certain things out because he didn’t want people to know that she sometimes wrote that she was mad at her mother because that was the woman he loved and he wanted you know and then later people have added those things in to say but here’s the real picture. It doesn’t mean she was a terrible little girl. It just means every teenager goes “my mom is making me crazy” It just gives her the more humanity to know all those dimensions and I think, yes, that’s what’s missing in these early biographies and we have to go back and really look at her writing — what exists — and then analyze that to get a sense of who she was but I think her activities tell us that. So teaching for Bronson Alcott tells us she was okay with an inter-racial group. She thought that you know desegregation was the proper thing to do. We wouldn’t do that. You could work for somebody else. You could tutor for anybody. You chose that job and you knew it was controversial and other people would judge you by it.

 

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