The Manuscript Almanacks of Mary Moody Emerson

Editors: Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, Distinguished Professor of English and American Studies, Penn State Altoona
and Noelle A. Baker
URL: http://marymoodyemerson.net
WWP URL: http://www.wwp.northeastern.edu/research/projects/manuscripts/emerson/about.html

From the Women Writers Project (WWP):
“Best known as the brilliant aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), Mary Emerson kept throughout her life a series of hand-made manuscript booklets she called “Almanacks.” This unpublished manuscript series spans over fifty years and one thousand pages and combines multiple literary genres, including devotional and philosophical journals, commonplace books, letters, and original compositions. Its subjects range from theology, philosophy, literary criticism, and science, to war, imperialism, and slavery. As such, the Almanacks provide insight into both the intellectual and everyday world of a single woman in early New England. These multidisciplinary texts illuminate the important ways in which antebellum women’s private writing intersects with the public literary marketplace and participated in ongoing national debates about the emerging public spheres of republicanism and liberalism.”