ABOUT THIS BOOK

Ellen Tucker Emerson and Edith Emerson Forbes, the daughters of Lidian Jackson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, grew up in the heart of Concord, Massachusetts’s famed literary community. In a culture that celebrated self-reliance, Ellen and Edith formed a partnership that only strengthened as their paths diverged, with Ellen remaining in the family home and Edith marrying William Forbes, moving to Milton, Massachusetts, and having eight children. The partnership allowed them to tend to the demands and opportunities created by their father’s career, including serving as his secretaries and editors, and helped them shape his posthumous image. It also enabled them to adapt to historical developments stretching from the Civil War to American imperialism as well as personal ones, including Edith’s growing family and travel and study abroad, and inevitable ones brought on by the aging processes of their parents and themselves.

Emerson’s Daughters is a biography of a sisterhood, the first full-length study of Ellen’s and Edith’s lives. Building on archival research into the extensive correspondence between the sisters, it adds to the growing body of work on women’s contribution to Transcendentalism while opening a window onto the rich, and understudied, family life of the “Sage of Concord.”

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

KATE CULKIN is professor of history at Bronx Community College and teaches research methods in biography and memoir in the biography and memoir master’s program at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is author of Harriet Hosmer: A Cultural Biography.

REVIEWS

“Kate Culkin brings out of the shadows two of 'Concord’s favorite daughters,' Ellen and Edith, who had a 'sisterhood built on correspondence,' and whose contributions have been all but lost until now. . . . A resource for scholars and curious readers alike, showcasing how the Emerson women were integral contributors to Concord’s literary and social history.”—Danica Cantrell, Discover Concord

“A biography of sisterhood, of a correspondence, of a family history, and of two imperfect women. . . . Highly readable, very informative, and extremely well-documented, this is an important addition to the large body of work about the Emersons.”—Julie Dobrow, Tufts Now

"Kate Culkin, as master biographer, shows how the Emerson children were not merely relating to but influencing the major literary and influential characters of Concord."—Literary Spinster

“What does it mean to write the story of women whose lives were lived in relation—to each other, to their families, and to their cultural moment? Historian Kate Culkin takes up this challenge in her new book Emerson’s Daughters, the first full-length biography of Ellen Tucker Emerson and Edith Emerson Forbes, daughters of Ralph Waldo and Lidian Jackson Emerson. Drawing on the sisters’ extensive correspondence, Culkin reveals a lifelong partnership that shaped the Emerson family legacy and illuminates women’s contributions to American intellectual and cultural life.”—The Write Connection at Thoreau Farm

“In exhaustive detail, Emerson’s Daughters traces the lives of these sisters and brilliantly succeeds in capturing the many roles that Edith and Ellen Emerson handled for their father, mother, brother, and extended family and friends. A tremendously important and detailed contribution to the study of Concord authors and the Emerson family.”—Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, coeditor of The Almanacks of Mary Moody Emerson: A Scholarly Digital Edition

“The inaugural book-length treatment of the lives of Ellen and Edith, Emerson’s Daughters is a truly important study with impeccable research and careful prose that is well-timed for this moment in Emerson scholarship.”—Christopher Hanlon, author of Emerson’s Memory Loss: Originality, Communality, and the Late Style

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface
Abbreviations

1. "Our Beautiful Poem Edith, and Our Excellent Prose Ellen" (1839–1851)
2. "We Each Have Something Good and Both Want All" (1852–1860)
3. "I was Never So Carried Away by Anything Before" (1861–1865)
4. "I Wrote for Myself as Well as for You" (1865–1872)
5. "What a Mercy It Is That There are Women in the World to Arrange for Men" (1876–1875)
6. "The Power of Our Life Has Been Very Kind" (1876–1882)
7. "In Reading a Biography I Always Like Best the Personal Parts" (1882–1892)
8. "Be Content to Remain a Dove and Let Me Remain a Cat" (1882–1892)
9. "Thank You Over and Over for Helping Me Out" (1898-1903)
10. "I Am So Glad We Had So Much Time Together" (1904–1909)
11. "Wherever She Went, She Planted a Garden" (1909–1929)

Notes
Frequently Cited Sources
Index