HARRIET MARTINEAU: AN

ECONOMIC VIEW OF VICTORIAN

ARTS AND LETTERS
Jannett K. Highfill and William V. Weber

It is sometimes interesting to see the disdpline of economics from

another point of view. Popular writers have often moved into and out
of an academic disdpline, either leaving their mark on the disdpline
or having the discipline leave amark on their popular work. In the case
of Harriet Martineau, a Victorian popular writer, the interest in
economics came early, and while she has had tittle if any lasting effect
on economics, it had a lasting effect on her. Still, she is of interest to
economists, because a close interest by an ~mateur can make the
professional stop and think. Are we really always so correct in our
disdplinary view of the world? For Ms. Martineau, her first published
work was a treatise in economics and it colored her subsequent world
view and her subsequent work. She began her career with a major
educational work on economics, the///ustrations of PoliticalEconomy
(1832-34). The tlmlnooof her work on political economy makes her of
interest to economists because we can trace the effects that economics
had on the rest of her work, whether she was writing on the condition
of women, philosophy, travel, or arts and letters. The purpose of t hi~
short paper is to see how political economy affected her analysis of the
arts and literature. Martinean began to formally develop thi~ analysis
during a two-year visit to America after fini.~hingthe Illustrations. Like
many a nineteenth-centuryvisitor, Martinean dismiesed American arts
and letters out of hand. As we will show, she attributed their defiden-
des not to the abundance of market imperfections but instead to an
immature society which had not yet learned the importance of laissez
faire.
The paper consists of a brief look at Martineau and the Illustra-
tions and a careful look at her observations on arts and letters. Beside

85
the Illustrations, we will restrict our attention to two works, Society in
America (1837) and How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838),
because they are the first major works done after the Illustrations, and
because the first introduces, and the second elaborates, her major
theme relative to arts and letters. Morals and Manners is especially
important because it contaln~ Martineau's methodology and has, in
fact, been called the fn'st methodological essay ever published
(Yates 5).
In her lifetime Martineau published more than 100 books and
pamphlets, scores of articles, and 1,642newspaper editorials (Yates 3).
While not a trained political economist,(1) her first major endeavor
was to write Illustrations of Political Economy. These were fictional
tales, drawing material from Smith, Mill, Ricardo, and Malthus, and
showing how their ideas could be embodied in "selected passages of
sodal fife" (Autobiography 1, 54-55). As Martineau was later to say, the
Illustrations "did not pretend to offer discoveries, or new applications
or elucidations of prior discoveries. It popularized, in a fresh form,
some doctrines and many truths long before made public by others"
(Autobiography 2, 564).
She had great difficulty fmclin~a publlsher for the tales because
"informed opinion" in London was affalnq such a scheme. For ex-
ample, James Mill, in a statement that he would later retract privately
to Martineau, had asserted that political economy could not be con-
veyed in fiction (Autobiography 1, 329). In spite of this opposition, the
Illustrations was wildly successful and established Martinean as a
popular writer with an established audience almost until her death in
1876. Sales of the Illustrations reached about 10,000 copies, some of
the stories being translated into French and Russian. They were
familiar not only to the working class but to the Czar of Russia hlra~lf.
Even Victoria, then a Princess, read the stories avidly. Martineau's
future books would be equally widely read, and her opinions would
have great impact on the Victorian world.
American Arts and Letters
One t'~nnot read Society in America without becomin~ aware of
Martineau's deep interest in the arts, as it be~n~ with the idea that a
"national portrait" done with perhaps "a few flowing strokes" requires
both a philosopher and a poet. Martinean frequently "sets the scene"
of whatever she wants to describe, and at times she waxes lyrical.
Consider, for example, her description of the forest outside of Wtagara

86
Falls: "Nature is there the empress, not the handmaid. Art is her
inexperienced page, and no longer the Prospero to whom she is the
Ariel" (1, 156). On one occasion, she even had the temerity to state
that the infant forest of the U.S. "may reveal no beauty to the painter;
but to the eye of one who loves to watch the process of world-makins
it is full of delight" (1,158).
Given her interest in the arts and her attempt at a comprehensive
picture of American society, Martineau naturally included her impres-
sions and opinions on arts, artists, and literature in Society in America.
She thought they were in a desperate state: " . . . America has yet
witnessed no creation, either in literature or the arts, and cannot even
distinguish a creation from a combination, imitation, or delineation..."
(2, 302). Despite this criticism, Martineau found that American arts
and letters at least had potential because "..there is the love of Art.
Weak, immature, ignorant, perhaps, as this taste at present is, it
exists..." (2, 142). These statements also demonstrate Martineau's
opinion of her abilities as critic. This is not the place to discuss
Martineau's critique of specific authors, but suffice it to say that in the
1830's were published Poe's and Bryant's Poems, various works by
Irving and Longfellow, Emerson's "Nature" and "The American
Scholar', and Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales.
Also not surprisingly, political economy played a role in her
opinions on the arts and letters. What may be less predictable is the
way in which economics impacted her views in that she explicitly rejects
a narrow"market imperfections" explanationfor the state of arts in the
U.S. Specifically, she rejects the notion that the "bad state of the laws
of literary property is answerable for some of the depression of
American literature" and asserts that if the individual or national mind
is ready to produce a work of genius, no "piratical booksellers" will
prevent it (Society in America 2, 309). For Martinean, arts and letters
are not constrained by imperfections in individual markets. Society in
America does, however, give an indication on the major way in which
economics influences her view of arts and letters.
Arts and Letters for the Social Observer
Martineau's primary interest in the arts is in the evidence they give
about the larger social picture. In Society in America, she states that
the arts and especially literature should be observed for the evidence
they give of the "national mind" (a term she left undefmed). Her
thinkin~ in this regard was expanded and refmed in How to Observe

87
Morals and Manners, and it is in this methodological work that the
effect of political economy is most pervasive. Briefly, the state of the
arts reflects the progress of a society, and the way to advance both is
laissez faire.
In Morals and Manners, Martineau suggests five "departments of
inquiry" for the social observer: religion, general moral notions,
domestic state, idea of liberty, and progress. At first glance, one may
think that the fme arts would be discussed as literature is discussed
within the heading of general moral notions. Martinean, however,
places 'arts and inventions" in her chapter on 'progress.' Here
progress does not mean "economic development,' although the two
ideas are related. To Martineau, progress means 'the way to social
perfection':
However widely men may differ as to the way to social
perfection, all whose minds have turned in that direction
agree as to the end. All agree that if the whole race could
live as brethren, society would be in the most advanced
state that can be conceived of. It is also agreed that the
spirit of fraternity is to be attained, if at all, by men discern-
ing their mutual relation, as "parts and proportions of one
wondrous whole.' (206)
While Martineau's definition of progress is not just economic, her
view on how to achieve progress is heavily influenced by political
economy. What Martineau means in the last sentence is not that
people should consciously work in concert for societal goals, but that
by following their individual interests, societal interests are advanced.
In other words, society should allow the laissez faire doctrine of the
political economists full reign.
This belief is everywhere in Martineau's work, and the Illustrations
in particular. For e~mple, in her anti-socialist tale "For Each and For
All," she expresses her views in a speech by the character Lord F---:
I enlarged,-whether eloquently I know not,--but I am sure
fervently,-as fervently as ever any advocate of cooperation
(socialism) spoke,--on the rule "for each and for all;"
showing that there is actual cooperation wherever in-
dividual interests are righteously pursued, since the
general interest is made up of individual interests. (167)

88
 If only individuals would realize they are "parts and proportions of
one wondrous whole," and "righteously" pursue their individual inter-
ests, society--and its economic system-would reach "the most ad-
vanced state that can be conceived of."
This paper is not the place to fully discuss the depth of Martineau's
belief in laissez fake. But whether the issue was the Corn Laws,
women's rights,slavery,or the arts,Martineau would without hesita-
tion apply the doctrine of laissezfaire. For example, in a correspon-
dence to Thomas Carlyle,J.S. Mill complaln~ thatMartineau "reduces
the laissezfalresystem to an absurdity as far as the principlegoes, by
merely carrying it out to all its consequences" (12, 152). Rivenburg
states that Mill's comment is pcrhaps "the greatest tribute and at the
same time the most interesting criticism of Harriet Martineau" (100).
In fact, Martinean believed that America's failure to understand
the importance of laissez faire, like the desperate state of its arts and
letters, was a sign of its social immaturity. In Society in America,she
states:
If she (America) had left labor and commerce, and capital
free; disdalnl-g interference at home and retaliation
abroad; showing her faith in the natural laws of social
economyby eMm]ycommittln~to them the external inter-
ests of her people, she would by this time have been the
pattern and instructress of the civilized world . . . . But she
had not the knowledge nor the requisite faith; nor was it
to be reasonably expected that she should. Her doctrine
was, and I fear still is, that she need not study political
economy while she is so prosperous as at present... (2, 52-
53)
Because the arts (the "finer arts" as well as the "useful arts and
inventions") primarily function as a measure of social progress for
Martineau, they are an instance of the appropriate application of
laissez fake. Comparing a primitive and a progressive society in
Morals and Manners, she says of the latter:
But there are other lands where a higher taste for beauty
is gratified. There are good prints provided cheap, to hang
in the place of the ancient sampler or daub. Casts from all
the finest works of the statuary, ancient and modern, are
hawked about the streets, and may be seen in the windows

89
 where green parrots and brown cats in plaster used to
annoy the eye. In societies where the workins class is thus
worked for, in the gratification of its finer tastes, the class
must be rising. It is rising into the region of intenecuml
luxury, and must have been borne up thither by the expan-
sion of the fraternal spirit. (21%18)
Since "expansion of the fraternal spirit" is progress, expansion of
the arts clearly accompanies progress in this passage. Furthermore,
notice the way in which improvement in the arts is accomplished. The
arts are "provided cheap" and "hawked about the streets" in a laissez-
faire market system. Martineau's argument is not that the arts reach
the working class when its members become more refined or better
educated. Rather the argument is essentially an economic one-
progress implies economic growth (an application of laissez faire)
which will in turn allow the lower classes access to the arts through the
market. The arts become a signal of economic development--an idea
which is not unknown to CUltural economists.(2)
Conclusion
Harriet Martineau provides the cultural economkt with a unique
view of arts and letters in the mid-nineteenth century. The under-
standin~ of political economy she ~ained from writing the Illustrations
had a strong effect on her later writings, and thus her opinions on the
arts have economic aspects not found in other popular Victorian
commentaries. Whether she was discussing the arts and letters of a
particular society like America or their role in revealln~ the state of
progress in any society, the arts were inseparable from the principles
of political economy.
Because of her dogmatic reliance on laissez falre as the cure for
all social ills, Martineau's writings also expose some of the naivete' of
that philosophy. In particular, her ideas on the arts are conspicuously
void of any aspects of externalities or public goods. Although she never
explicitly said it, there is no doubt that Martineau woUld be aga;-~t
public support of the arts-if people wanted the symphony, then a
laissez-faire market woUld provide the symphony.
Bradley Univm'sity Eastern Illinois University
Footnotes
1. In later years she liked to say that she had learned political
economy without knowing it from the Globe newspaper

90
 (Autobiography 1, 54-55). Martineau would also say that in 1827
she picked up a copy of Mrs. Jane Marcet's Conversations on
Political Economy (a pedagogical book for young people) in
order to learn precisely what political economy was, and to h e r
surprise she discovered that she had been teaching it "unawares"
in some of her journalistic writing (Autobiography 1, 105).
2. This passage from Morals and Manners also reveals another
connection between Martineau's treatments of economics and
the arts. She had a great deal of sympathy for people of the
working class, and her desire to help them through education was
a strong motive behind her Illustrations. Similarly, the "eye of the
peasant and the artisan" was foremost in her mind when she
outlined the relationship between progress and the arts in Morals
and Manners. She used a fmal conversation between Lord and
Lady F-- in "For Each and For All" to ask artists not to overlook
the bottom rungs of society. As Lady F-- says, "Yes; let humble
life be shown.., in all its strong and strange varieties. . . . Let us
have in books, in pictures, and on the stage, working men and
women, in the various periods of their struggles through
~e"(171).
References
Martinean, Harriet. "For Each and For All," Illustrations of Political
Economy, no. 12. Boston: Leonard C. Bowles, 1833.
Illustrations of Political Economy. 9 vols. London: Charles
Fox, 1832-1834.
Society in America. 2 vols. New York: Saunders and Otley,
1837.
How to Observe Morals and Manners. London: Charles
Knight and Co., 1838.
Harriet Manineau's Autobiography with Memorials by
Mafia Weston Chapman. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and
Company, 1881.
Mill, John Stuart. Collected Works ofJohn Stua~ Mill. 29 vols. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1963.
Rivenburg, Narola Elizabeth. Hardet Martineau: An Example of Hc-
todan Conflict. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1932.

91
Yates, Gaylr Graham (ed.). Harriet Maninea# on Women. New
Brunswick, New Jersey:.Rutgers UniversityPress, 1985.

92