From Revolutionary Feminism to Revolutionary Paris

Abstract

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman made Wollstonecraft a major figure in the French Revolution debate and the major voice of the feminist intervention in the bourgeois cultural revolution. It even brought an offer of marriage. She wrote to Everina in mock-formal style early in 1792, ‘be it known unto you that my book &c &c has afforded me an opportunity of settling very advantageous in the matrimonial line, with a new acquaintance; but entre nous — a handsome house and a proper man did not tempt me’ (Letters, p. 210). Meanwhile, ‘a standing dish of family cares’ continued to preoccupy her. She worried about finding ‘situations’ for her sisters, and eagerly passed on to them Ruth Barlow’s assurance that they would be welcomed in the United States as English gentlewomen and have a good chance of finding husbands (Letters, p. 213). She pressed Charles to go to America with the Barlows and settle on a farm. But Barlow was part idealist and part opportunist. Though his political pamphlet, Advice to the Privileged Orders, was published by Johnson in February 1792, he was soon fishing for business opportunities with the government of France, and delayed his departure home. Wollstonecraft obtained work for Charles with Johnson in the autumn, and was told by Tom Paine that ‘the habit of order’ acquired ‘by attending to business’ would ‘“do him no harm in America”’ (Letters, p. 215). Finally Charles left for the United States without the Barlows later in 1792. James was an officer in a merchant ship, and was off in the Atlantic by June 1792 for most of the year.