Early Life:

● Harriet Martineau was born in Norwich, England. She was the sixth of eight children.

● Her father, Thomas, was a textile manufacturer. A highly respected Unitarian, Harriet's
mother, Elizabeth Rankin, was the daughter of a sugar refiner and grocer.

● The Martineau family was of French Huguenot ancestry and professed Unitarian views.

Education:

● Harriet Martineau received a very proper and conventional education which was
made sure by her mother, Elizabeth.

● At the beginning of her educational journey, Harriet was mainly taught at home by
several of her elder siblings.

● Harriet was taught French by her mother which was the predominant language spoken by
her father. Thomas, her father, taught her Latin, and her brother Thomas taught Harriet math
and writing.

● As her education progressed, she grew fond of topics including Shakespeare, political
economy, philosophy, and history.

● She also dove deeper into topics on her own, such as Latin, Greek, and Italian, and even
took a more profound interest in the Bible.

Harriet Martineau’s Writing Career:

● After the passing of her father, Harriet Martineau became an avid writer to provide
for herself.

● Harriet's first commissioned book, Illustrations of Political Economy [17] was a fictional tutorial
intended to help the general public understand the ideas of Adam Smith.
 ● She also translated a lot of Auguste Comte's books during that time.

● She won numerous awards for her writing and though controversial, was a rare
example of a successful and popular working woman writer of the Victorian era.

Harriet Martineau’s Work:

● Martineau strongly expressed her opinions on a variety of topics.

● Martineau was a pioneer in the field of sociology, in her work Society in America; she was
the first to believe in the feminist theory.

● Later in her career, however, she advocated for government action to stem inequality
and injustice and is remembered by some as a social reformer due to her belief in the
progressive evolution of society.

Harriet Martineau’s Contributions to Sociology:

● Martineau’s key contribution to the field of sociology was her assertion that when
studying society, one must focus on all aspects of it.

● She emphasized the importance of examining political, religious, and social institutions.
By studying society in this way, she felt, one could deduce why inequality existed,
particularly faced by girls and women.

● Her social theoretical perspective was often focused on the moral stance of a populace
and how it did or did not correspond to the social, economic, and political relations of its
society.

Harriet Martineau’s Main Belief:

● Harriet Martineau was a strong believer in feminism.

● She was the first to speak about women only being looked at as secondary partners
in a relationship.
● In "Criticism on Women." she talks of the abuse that, when endured, she was
revolutionary in the acts of helping women to learn to fight back.

● Martineau felt that women were worth more and could contribute more to society
than just house wife.