Child’s was a ‘household name’ during her lifetime, Carolyn Karcher writes, . . . yet since then her works and influence have been all but ‘erased from history.’ Ms. Karcher hopes to restore that reputation and to familiarize the modern reader with Child’s writings through a literary biography based on ‘extensive quotation and detailed literary analysis.’ Ms. Karcher’s goal is an admirable one; Child’s importance and influence should be reasserted.
New York Times Book Review
Lydia Maria Child’s rich and expansive life has finally been accorded the voluminous treatment it deserves.
American Historical Review
Karcher’s biography of Child is a monumentally thorough scholarly work.
Karcher convincingly argues that Child deserves recognition as one of the handful of leading women intellectuals of her day: indeed, of leading intellectuals of either sex.
Readers who come to this large volume expecting only the biography of a single figure, underestimate what the book offers. To be sure, The First Woman in the Republic will stand for many years as the definitive biography of Child. More than that, though, it is a cultural biography of an entire century....For students and scholars of American literature, American history, and American cultural studies, this is a volume to be cherished for its passion and its honesty. -- African American Review
Karcher establishes the intellectual stature of one of the nineteenth century's most overlooked figures. -- American Literature
Famous during her lifetime, Child (1802-1880) had a remarkable career as author and social reformer. Karcher (Shadow Over the Promised Land) has prodigiously researched 19th-century life in America to place her subject in historical context for this definitive biography. Child wrote novels (Hobomok), women's advice books (The Frugal Housewife) and journalism. She also founded a children's magazine. She sacrificed a flourishing literary career to devote herself to the abolitionist cause, publishing the influential antislavery text, An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called African (1833), as well as editing an abolitionist newspaper. Although she and her husband, David, were united in social activism, their marriage lacked passion, and Child expressed her sexual feelings through her fiction, according to Karcher. She also agitated for the rights of Native Americans and women. Her seemingly secure reputation was erased, notes the author, by the ``backlash against Reconstruction.'' This work should bring her recognition again. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
New Englander Child (1802-80) was foremost among social activists of the 19th century who, while working for rights denied to them, also fought against the genocide of the Indian and the enslavement of the African American. As a writer of nonfiction and fiction (she predated James Fenimore Cooper with her first historical novel) and as an abolitionist and crusader for human rights and religious tolerance, she was one of the most controversial and even heralded women of her time. Unlike the work of some 19th-century activists, her writings are in many cases still relevant today, leaving the question of how Child has simply disappeared from the literary and historical textbooks. Karcher (English, Temple Univ.) details Child's life in a thoroughly researched manner that emphasizes Child's own writings. It is not geared to casual reading but is recommended for all large public and academic libraries as well as women's studies collections. A meticulous study of a fascinating woman.-Kathrine Gillen, Luke Air Force Base Lib., Ariz.
[O]ne of the strengths of this extremely detailed, well-researched, and .
. . thought-provoking biography is the way in which the author delineates
the interrelationships between Child's varied causes. . . . The First Woman
in the Republic will undoubtedly become the definitive biography of Child.
In what will be the definitive biography for years to come, Carolyn
Karcher has written an exhaustive study of a formidable nineteenth century
figure.
Karcher's study represents a significant scholarly achievement. It not
only offers a complex and sophisticated portrayal of a woman struggling to
contend with `an unsatisfying marriage, unfulfilled sexual desires,
domestic drudgery, and thwarted professional ambitions' and a reformer
whose life's work was devoted to the drive for equality in all spheres, but
also suggests new ways of examining American society's most tumultuous
period of growth and change.
Journal of American Studies
Where Karcher scores, as her subtitle indicates, is as a cultural
biographer. . . . The biography benefits from archival materials, an
extensive knowledge of the literature of anti-slavery, Reconstruction, and
Indian removal, and a broad knowledge of American politics and literature
to boot. . . . The chapters on children's literature and anti-slavery, The
National Anti-Slavery Standard, John Brown, the Civil War, and
Reconstruction, are particularly impressive. Karcher's literary judgements
are also often acute. She brings out Child's supreme grasp of literary
strategy, her sharp powers of persuasion, and her accurate sense of her
audience.
Lydia Maria Child was a remarkable woman, and Carolyn Karcher's full
account of her life, her society, her writings, and actions to change the
ills of society is an extraordinary book. . . . [I]n Karcher's biography
Child's life, writings, and social and political activities have received
their fullest, most interesting scholarly account.
Perhaps Karcher's most important contribution is her prodigious
research-other scholars now have an understanding of the depth and volume
of Child's writing. Each of Lydia Maria Child's causes-Indian removal,
women's rights, abolition, and even respect for the elderly-is deserving of
further analysis. Taken together, they reveal Child, and Karcher, to be
tireless, insightful, and forward-thinking.
Karcher [has] extraordinary skills as both historian and literary
critic.
Carolyn Karcher is to be commended for the overall fine quality of her
research and writing. She demonstrates an impressive command of primary and
secondary literature and does a thorough job reviewing and analyzing al of
Child's important works, a challenging proposition given their number, length, and variety. She does an equally fine job placing this remarkable woman in the context of her era. . . . [A]fter reading this book, one cannot help but share Karcher's belief that Child is `an exceptionally rewarding subject.
By probing Child's literary innovations, her radical social vision and activism, and the response of the intellectual and political world of nineteenth-century New England to her activity, Karcher adds a vital dimension to scholarship of this period. . . . Karcher's recreation of the rich cultural milieu of Child's era is sure-footed and copious. . . .
Karcher makes a powerful case for the resurrection of interest in Child.
As biography, Karcher's work extends the genre admirably to place a life
in its historical and literary contexts. Her consistent sensitivity to
matters of gender underlies the necessity of applying a feminist analysis
to a writer like Child.
Weaving together textual analysis and biographical narrative, Karcher maps
the relationship between Child's professional and personal lives, her
marriage and her career. Simultaneously, she offers us a lens through which
we can glimpse a rapidly changing nation.
Much of Karcher's success in portraying Child's character comes from
giving serious attention to Child's total output rather than concentrating
narrowly on her better known antislavery work and her descriptions of urban
life. . . . Taken altogether, Karcher gives us a Child that earlier
biographers only skimmed because they failed to interweave the writer with
the reformer.
One only has to read this cultural biography . . . to appreciate how
appropriate Karcher's conscientious recordings of Child's life and work
actually are. . . . Works such as Karcher's offer an invaluable service to
scholars, teachers, and students interested in broadening their
understanding of American literature and culture and the significant role
that women played in developing these arenas. . . . The First Woman in the
Republic is a book that has much to offer and much to teach, not only about
a major literary figure, but about the culture in which she lived and
wrote. . . . Karcher's biography compels one to give Child another look, to
acknowledge her status as a major American writer, and to factor her in
when creating the next syllabus for a nineteenth-century American
literature class.
Karcher's Herculean research and eloquent writing will help propel the recanonization of Child that has only begun.
