Harriet Martineau

Agora

Harriet Martineau

1802–1876

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

To understand a society you must observe it carefully and fairly – and judge it by the ideals it claims for itself.

Placement

Sociology & Social Theory · Northern Europe · Society & History, Politics & Law, Gender & Feminism

Writer and social investigator who taught Victorian Britain political economy through stories, wrote one of the first manuals of social research and brought Comte’s positivism to English readers. Today she is often called the first woman sociologist.

Key ideas

Observing morals and manners systematically
Measuring a society by its own professed ideals
Critique of slavery and of women’s political non-existence

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Influence

Influenced by 2

Adam Smith

influenced by
In Illustrations of Political Economy (1832–34) Martineau turned the doctrines of Smith, Malthus and Ricardo into monthly stories, popularising the division of labour and free trade. H. Martineau, Illustrations of Political Economy (1832–34); SEP “Adam Smith’s Moral and Political Philosophy”
Evidence: AI draft
Adam Smith › 1723–1790
Auguste Comte

influenced by
Martineau shared Comte’s view that society, like nature, follows knowable laws and condensed his Course of Positive Philosophy into an English version (1853). H. Martineau (trans.), The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (1853); How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838); SEP “Auguste Comte”
Evidence: AI draft
Auguste Comte › 1798–1857

Works

1838How to Observe Morals and Manners
One of the first manuals of social research: study a society’s institutions and records first, using what people say only as commentary on them – and measure the society against its own principles.

Position

How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838) is one of the earliest treatises on the method of social research. Martineau warns travellers against judging foreign customs by their own prejudices and against generalising from a few conversations. Instead they should study “things” – institutions, records, buildings, epitaphs, popular songs, even the statistics of crime and suicide – in which a whole people expresses its morals. Society in America (1837) applied this method and measured the young republic against its own declared principles of equality and self-government. By that standard slavery stood condemned, and so did the position of women: in a chapter on “the political non-existence of women” she argued that they were governed without their consent, contrary to the Declaration of Independence. Martineau held that society, like nature, follows laws that can be known, which drew her to Comte; her translation made positivism available to English readers. Long remembered mainly as a populariser, she has been recognised since the late 20th century as a founder of sociology in her own right, though historians still debate how far the title fits.

Life & context

Harriet Martineau was born in 1802 in Norwich into a Unitarian family of textile manufacturers and became increasingly deaf from her youth. When the family firm failed, she earned her living by writing. Her Illustrations of Political Economy (1832–34), monthly stories that explained the ideas of Adam Smith, Malthus and Ricardo, made her famous. From 1834 to 1836 she travelled through the United States, where her open support for the abolitionists made her enemies. She went on to write novels, history and journalism, settled in Ambleside in the Lake District in 1845, and in 1853 published a condensed English translation of Comte’s Course of Positive Philosophy. She died in 1876; her Autobiography appeared the following year.