Margaret Fuller
1810–1850 (age 40)
writer, critic
Biography
Margaret Fuller was a trailblazing intellectual and cultural critic whose influence extended far beyond her era. As a writer, editor, and social commentator, she championed women's education and rights at a time when such advocacy was considered radical. Her work as a critic and her contributions to the transcendentalist movement established her as one of America's most formidable minds, and she earned the respect of her contemporaries including Emerson and Thoreau.
Fuller's tragic death at age forty cut short a brilliant career that had already reshaped American literary and philosophical discourse. Her legacy as a pioneer of feminist thought and literary criticism endures, and her burial at Mount Auburn Cemetery recognizes her as one of the nineteenth century's most significant American voices.