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\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nLydia Huntley Sigourney, born Lydia Howard Huntley on the 1st of September, 1791 in Norwich, CT, was the only child of gardener Ezekial Huntley and his wife Zerviah (Sophia) Wentworth. From a young age, Lydia Sigourney was a champion for women\u2019s education, and in 1814, Daniel Wadsworth invited her to his Hartford home to continue operating her school. In 1815, Wadsworth helped her publish her first book, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse<\/em>, marking the beginning of her prolific career as one of the period\u2019s most celebrated writers. By the time of her death in 1865, Sigourney had contributed to over three hundred periodicals and published over fifty books.<\/p>\n During her lifetime, Sigourney was considered one of the United States\u2019 most influential writers and is claimed to be the first best-selling female writer in the nation. However, today her name and works are largely forgotten in both popular culture and academia. In recent decades, some feminist and literary scholars \u2013 namely Annie Finch, Nina Baym, and Dorothy Z. Baker \u2013 have been reexamining her work and its historical criticisms, rewriting her narrative in a new light.<\/p>\n In her autobiography Letters of Life<\/em>, Sigourney reflects fondly on her upbringing in a young United States. Her father, a veteran of the American Revolution, would regale his only daughter with stories of both hardship and triumph, which Sigourney cites as making a \u201cstrong impression on [her] infantine imagination.\u201d Her father\u2019s garden surrounding the Norwich estate of the dowager Madame Lathrop likewise served as fuel for her poetic vision: \u201cI remember with what wondering reverence I gazed at the tall purple lilacs and white snowballs; my own most familiar acquaintance among the flower-people being the violets and blue-bells and lupines in my allotted plat of ground\u201d (26). Her keen appreciation for nature is evident in many of her works, such as in her poem \u201cWildflowers Gathered for a Sick Friend\u201d:<\/p>\n Rise from the dells where ye first were born, \u00a0Sigourney reports finding her love for literature at the age of three, hiding in a trunk lined with printed hymns in her attic, and surreptitiously enjoying her stolen copy of Ann Radcliffe\u2019s Mysteries of Udolpho<\/em>. Entrusted with an early sense of independence, the young Sigourney found solace in her nightly meditations: \u201cFor it sometimes brought me harmonies, and thrilled me to strange delight with rhythmical words.\u201d To Sigourney, it seemed that she had an inherent disposition for the composition of poetry.<\/p>\n The poet\u2019s curiosity was boundless, and her brilliance did not go unrecognized by her father\u2019s well-established client, Madame Lathrop, who insisted on her receiving a substantive education. In her primary years, she attended Norwich\u2019s East District School, later transitioning to the Lathrops\u2019 endowed schoolhouse on the Norwich Green. This tight-knit learning environment fostered Sigourney\u2019s aptitude for higher learning, which she leveraged to teach herself Latin, Greek, mathematics, philosophy, and other subjects that were largely reserved for boys at the time.<\/p>\n Sigourney\u2019s unwavering support for women\u2019s education was founded in her belief that men and women belonged to distinct public and private spheres, and that women could best influence society through teaching. In 1811, she and her friend Nancy Maria Hyde opened their school for girls in Norwich, which operated for a few years before Ms. Hyde tragically passed away in 1816. The school\u2019s curriculum was controversial in that it focused on the humanities and natural sciences rather than the domestic arts, deterring many families from enrolling their daughters. Despite this, Sigourney\u2019s school continued to operate until she married Charles Sigourney in 1819, choosing from then on to focus on her domestic duties and career as a writer.<\/p>\n In 1814, amid concerns that the Norwich school would not survive, Madame Lathrop’s friend Daniel Wadsworth \u2013 art collector and founder of the Wadsworth Atheneum \u2013 offered to let Sigourney operate her school out of his home at 15 Hurlburt St., Hartford. For the next five years, Sigourney\u2019s school stood as a central location for the advancement of young women, including African American, Indigenous American, and other children from underserved communities. Her work inspired other important figures in the movement to expand women’s education, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catharine Beecher, and Mary Lyon.<\/p>\n In the same year that the Hartford school opened, a young Alice Cogswell matriculated in Sigourney\u2019s class, studying under the poet until 1817 when she became the first student to enroll in the Connecticut Asylum for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons (now the American School for the Deaf). Through her instruction of Alice Cogswell, Sigourney became the first known person in the United States to teach a deaf child how to read and write, and a pioneer for deaf education.<\/p>\n Sigourney\u2019s radically inclusive vision for education reflected her spirituality, patriotism, and her passionate opposition to oppression. Through her poetry and other forms of advocacy, Sigourney spoke out against slavery and the mistreatment of Native American peoples.<\/p>\n A writer of critical acclaim, Sigourney earned a multitude of praiseful nicknames throughout her career, including \u201cThe American Hemans,\u201d \u201cThe Female Milton,\u201d and most notably \u201cThe Sweet Singer of Hartford.\u201d Her sentimental style and patriotic and Christian values strongly appealed to her 19th-century audience, and the consistency of her publications kept her in the public eye.<\/p>\n Although her husband vehemently objected to female authorship, Sigourney was determined to have her works published, and her success in the field became a financial necessity when her husband\u2019s businesses began to fail. Her most popular poems were initially published anonymously, but were later published under her name in a compilation called Select Poems<\/em>. Many of these pieces are elegiac and funerary poems, and according to Sigourney herself, were written hastily and extemporaneously. These pieces epitomize Sigourney\u2019s work in the view of most contemporary scholars, painting Sigourney as a shallow, overly sentimental caricature of antebellum women writers. However, Nina Baym, the late American literary historian, argues that Sigourney\u2019s work is far more versatile than it is credited.<\/p>\n Sigourney\u2019s elegiac poetry can be organized into three main subtypes: memento mori<\/em>, and generic and specific consolation poetry. Her memento mori<\/em> poetry deals generally with one\u2019s reckoning with mortality and loss, such as her poem \u201cThere Is a Time to Die,\u201d which is intended to evoke a sense of comfort about death\u2019s inevitability. The other two subtypes \u2013 general and specific consolation poetry \u2013 were written to be read by mourners. One such poem, titled \u201cThe Lost Darling\u201d was written for a mother grieving the loss of her three-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n Sigourney did not only write poetry and she did not only write about death. Many of her works were conduct books for women \u2013 a popular genre during her time which reflected Sigourney\u2019s belief that women had a distinct role in society as homemakers. As its name suggests, these books perpetuated social norms and offered advice for women on how to act in their daily lives. Many of these conduct books were composed as a compilation of letters regarding various topics, such as Letters to Young Ladies<\/em>, Letters to My Pupils<\/em>, and Letters to Mothers<\/em>.<\/p>\n Much of Sigourney\u2019s work, however, focused on history and geography; particularly that of the northeastern United States. She explored these topics extensively in both prose and verse, and her discussion and criticism of worldly matters gave the poet an outlet to connect with the public sphere \u2013 without, of course, abandoning her domestic duties. In these historical pieces, Sigourney was able to express her disdain for the mistreatment of African and Native Americans.<\/p>\n While Lydia Sigourney\u2019s work is not widely read today, her legacy as an advocate for the education of women and minorities lives on.<\/p>\n Selected Poems<\/p>\n “Fall of the Charter Oak”<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cTo the First Slave Ship\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cDeath of an Infant\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIndian Names\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n School of Young Ladies.<\/a><\/p>\n Poetry.<\/a><\/p>\n Selections from Zinzendorff, and Other Poems:<\/p>\n \u201cThoughts for Mourners\u201d Selections from Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cThe Charter-Oak, at Hartford, to the Great Oak of Geneseo\u201d \u201cLetter VII: Manners and Accomplishments\u201d from Letters to Young Ladies<\/p>\n Lydia Huntley Sigourney – Biographical and Critical Sources<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" America\u2019s First Best-Selling Woman Author Written by Katie Cook Lydia Huntley Sigourney, born Lydia Howard Huntley on the 1st of September, 1791 in Norwich, CT, was the only child of gardener Ezekial Huntley and his wife Zerviah (Sophia) Wentworth. From a young age, Lydia Sigourney was a champion for women\u2019s education, and in 1814, Daniel … Continue reading Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865)\u00a0<\/span> Humble Beginnings<\/h5>\n
\nFrom the tangled beds of the weed and thorn,
\nRise, for the dews of the morn are bright,
\nAnd haste away, with your eyes of light. (1-4)<\/p>\nThe Principled Poet<\/h5>\n
The Sweet Singer of Hartford<\/h5>\n
Anthology Selections<\/h4>\n
\n\u201cGarafilia Mohalby\u201d
\n\u201cNiagara\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe Great Oak of Geneseo, to the Charter-Oak at Hartford\u201d
\n\u201cPassage Up the Connecticut, From Hartford to Springfield\u201d<\/p>\n