Judith Sargent Murray

Judith Sargent Murray
Portrait of Judith Sargent Murray by John Singleton Copley, Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Born	(1751-05-01)May 1, 1751 Gloucester, Massachusetts
Died	June 9, 1820(1820-06-09) (aged 69) Natchez, Mississippi
Occupation	Women's rights advocate, essayist, playwright, poet, and letter writer.
Spouse(s)	John Stevens, John Murray

Judith Sargent Murray (May 1, 1751 – June 9, 1820) was an early American advocate for women's rights, an essayist, playwright, poet, and letter writer. She was one of the first American proponents of the idea of the equality of the sexes—that women, like men, had the capability of intellectual accomplishment and should be able to achieve economic independence. Among many other influential pieces, her landmark essay "On the Equality of the Sexes" paved the way for new thoughts and ideas proposed by other feminist writers of the century.

Judith Sargent was born on May 1, 1751, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, to Winthrop Sargent and Judith Saunders as the first of eight children. The Sargent children were raised to be "good Christians" at the established Congregational First Parish Church where, according to Judith, they were taught that "benevolence should guide their every action, virtue will be the principle of their lives." The Sargent family was considered to be cultured, politically aware, and civically active. As a wealthy, ship-owning merchant family, Judith’s parents were able to provide her and her siblings with a top-notch education. As a female in that time period, her education was unusually thorough. Judith swayed from traditional gender norms by sharing her brother’s, Winthrop Sargent, tutor, minister John Rogers, as Winthrop prepared for Harvard. However, despite John Rogers’ tutoring, there were few opportunities for her to receive any formal education beyond reading and writing. Much of her knowledge was self-taught through her family’s library which allowed her to read history, philosophy, geography, and literature. Her deep interest in education and her family’s support lead her to write poetry from as young as nine years old. According to family legend, her father read Judith’s "humble attempts at poetry" to family members, to make it clear he was incredibly proud of her talents. Although she considered herself as capable as her brother, her educational experience was far inferior to his. Thus, even as a young girl, she was painfully aware of the way her society circumscribed the aspirations of women.

Primarily self-taught thanks to the family library in her merchant-class home, Murray believed that with quality education, women's accomplishments would equal those of men's. She believed women would succeed in life for two reasons: 1) education, 2) parents who raised their daughters to "reverence themselves," as she put it in one of her essays.