- Byname:
- Fanny Wright
- Born:
- Sept. 6, 1795, Dundee, Scot.
- Died:
- Dec. 13, 1852, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. (aged 57)
- Political Affiliation:
- Workingmenâs Party
Frances Wright
-
Who was Frances Wright?
Frances Wright (1795â1852) was a Scottish-born American social reformer known for her progressive views on religion, education, marriage, and birth control.
In 1825, Wright invested a significant portion of her wealth to establish Nashoba, a colony in Tennessee aimed at purchasing, educating, and emancipating enslaved people, with the goal of helping them establish a colony outside the U.S.
She lectured widely, advocating for equal rights for women, secular education, and liberalized divorce laws. Wright co-edited the New Harmony Gazette and, later, the Free Enquirer, promoting free-thinking ideals and the political organization of the working class.
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Where was Frances Wright from and when did she live?
Frances Wright was a Scottish-born American social reformer, born in Dundee, Scotland, on September 6, 1795. She died in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 13, 1852. Wright became known for her revolutionary views on various topics, including religion, education, marriage, and birth control, which made her a popular author and lecturer but also a target of vilification. In August 1818, she traveled to America for a two-year visit. In 1825, she invested a large part of her fortune in a tract in western Tennessee that she called Nashoba, where she purchased slaves, freed them, and settled them with the promise of eventual freedom.
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What causes did Frances Wright support?
Frances Wright, a Scottish-American social reformer, championed several causes during her lifetime. Wright was a proponent of revolutionary views on diverse topics, from religion and education to marriage and birth control.
She advocated for equal rights for women and free secular education run by the state. Wright also devised a plan for the gradual abolition of slavery, including purchasing, educating, and emancipating slaves, as demonstrated at her Nashoba colony in Tennessee.
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How did Frances Wright work to end slavery?
Frances Wright, a Scottish-born American social reformer, addressed slavery through both writing and direct action. In her 1825 publication, A Plan for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the United States Without Danger of Loss to the Citizens of the South, she advocated for Congress to allocate land for this purpose.
To demonstrate her plan, in December 1825, Wright invested a significant portion of her wealth in a 640-acre tract of land in Tennessee, named Nashoba, where she purchased slaves, with the goal of eventual freedom. Wright freed the enslaved people she purchased and settled them at Nashoba with the promise of eventual freedom. After a scandal and poor health, Wright had to leave Nashoba. In 1830, she arranged for the formerly enslaved people of Nashoba to be colonized in Haiti.
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What other social reforms was Frances Wright involved in?
Frances Wright was a Scottish-born American social reformer who advocated for revolutionary changes in various aspects of society. She championed equal rights for women and called for the replacement of legal marriage with unions based on moral obligation. Wright also advocated for liberalized divorce laws, birth control, and free secular education run by the state. Additionally, she supported the political organization of the working classes.
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How did Frances Wright influence American society and reform movements?
Frances Wright, a Scottish-born American social reformer, significantly influenced American society through her revolutionary views and activism. Wright advocated for women's rights, birth control, secular education, and liberalized divorce laws.
She put her beliefs into action by founding Nashoba, a community aimed at gradually emancipating slaves through education and colonization. Although Nashoba faced challenges and criticism, Wright remained a vocal proponent of abolition and defended her ideas through public lectures and journalism. Her work with Robert Dale Owen on the New Harmony Gazette and Free Enquirer further amplified her reformist message, contributing to the free-thinking movement and the political organization of the working classes.
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Frances Wright (born Sept. 6, 1795, Dundee, Scot.âdied Dec. 13, 1852, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.) was a Scottish-born American social reformer whose revolutionary views on religion, education, marriage, birth control, and other matters made her both a popular author and lecturer and a target of vilification.
Wright was the daughter of a well-to-do Scottish merchant and political radical who had circulated the works of Thomas Paine. Her parents died and left her and a sister a fortune when she was two, and they were reared in London and Devon by conservative relatives. At age 21 she returned to Scotland to live with a great-uncle, who was a professor of philosophy at Glasgow College. There she read widely and wrote some youthful romantic verse and A Few Days in Athens (1822), a novelistic sketch of a disciple of Epicurus that outlined the materialistic philosophy to which she adhered throughout her life. In August 1818 she sailed with her sister for America for a two-year visit, during which her play Altorf, on the subject of Swiss independence, was produced in New York City.
The enthusiasm of her highly laudatory and widely read Views of Society and Manners in America, published in England in 1821, won Wright the friendship of the marquis de Lafayette, whom she visited in France in 1821. She timed her return to New York on a second trip in 1824 to coincide with his triumphal tour of the country and followed him on his entire journey. She joined him in visits with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Slavery was discussed, and both men approved in general of her plan to purchase, educate, and emancipate slaves and to help them start a colony outside the United States.
In 1825 Wright published A Plan for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the United States Without Danger of Loss to the Citizens of the South, which urged Congress to set aside tracts of land for the purpose. In December 1825, by way of demonstrating her plan, she invested a large part of her fortune in a 640-acre (260-hectare) tract in western Tennessee (near present-day Memphis) that she called Nashoba. She purchased slaves in 1825, freed them, and settled them at Nashoba with the promise of eventual freedom. The colony got off to a poor start, from which it never recovered.
During Wrightâs absence in 1827 owing to ill health, a scandal broke over charges of free love; on her return to Nashoba in company with Frances Trollope in January 1828, she found a ruin. After publishing a widely reprinted newspaper article defending her idea, she left Nashoba for Robert Dale Owenâs socialist community at New Harmony, Indiana. In 1830 she returned to arrange for the emancipation of the Nashoba slaves and their colonization in Haiti.
Wright helped edit Owenâs New Harmony Gazette and, defying convention, took to the lecture platform. Her Course of Popular Lectures (1829 and 1836) attacked religion, church influence in politics, and authoritarian education and defended equal rights for women and the replacement of legal marriage by a union based on moral obligation. In 1829 she and Owen settled in New York City, where they published a radical newspaper called the Free Enquirer and led the free-thinking movement, calling for liberalized divorce laws, birth control, free secular education run by the state, and the political organization of the working classes. She lectured regularly in her âHall of Science,â a converted church on Broome Street.
In 1830 Wright sailed to France with her failing sister, who died a short time later. In July 1831 she married Guillaume Sylvan Casimir Phiquepal DâArusmont, a physician she had first met at New Harmony, and she remained with him in Paris until 1835. In that year they returned to the United States and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1836 and 1838 she was again on the platform, this time in support of the Democratic Party and in particular of President Andrew Jacksonâs attack on the Bank of the United States. Her own lecture courses attracted little attention, however. Over the next dozen years she traveled frequently between the United States and France. Wright and her husband were divorced in 1850.
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