Woman in the Twentieth Century: Margaret Fuller and Feminist Biography

Abstract

Feminist biographical theory emphasizes the importance of ordinary women's lives, the "domestic density" of extraordinary women's lives, and, perhaps most important, the reciprocal relationship between a biographer and her subject-a relationship that has been compared with friendship and even mother-hood. Four recent biographies of nineteenth-century feminist Margaret Fuller-two written for adults and two for young people-exemplify the problems that feminist theory can help resolve and the insights to which it can lead.