Margaret Bayard Smith
Margaret Bayard Smith was a prominent American writer and social commentator born in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. She experienced significant personal challenges in her early life, losing her mother at a young age and navigating complex family dynamics through multiple marriages. Smith received a strong education at the Moravian Young Ladies Seminary, which fostered her passion for literature and intellectual discourse. In the 1790s, she became involved with the Friendly Club in New York City, where she began advocating for women's rights.
Her marriage to her second cousin, Samuel Harrison Smith, in 1800 marked a turning point, with her writing productivity declining as she juggled domestic responsibilities. Despite the challenges of motherhood, including the loss of many children, Smith remained committed to her abolitionist beliefs and documented the lives of her black servants, incorporating their stories into her work. In the 1820s, she revitalized her writing career with several novels, including the anonymously published "American Mother: Or, The Seymour Family." Her contributions to literature and society reflect her dedication to activism and her keen observations of the world around her, making her a notable figure in early American literature and women's rights advocacy.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Margaret Bayard Smith
Author
- Born: February 20, 1778
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Died: June 7, 1844
Biography
Margaret Bayard Smith was born in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. Her father was a colonel in the rebel army and also a merchant and politician. When Smith was only two, her mother passed away, leaving behind a husband and eight children. Smith’s father remarried, but by the time she was ten, her stepmother had died as well. When Smith’s father married for a third time, he sent Smith and her younger sister to the Moravian Young Ladies Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Smith thrived in the educational environment, and developed a taste for literature.
Smith lived with various family members during the 1790’s, including her older sister and her grandparents, with whom she pursued her love of reading and intellectual conversation. In 1795, Smith was living in New York City, where she became a member of a discussion group called the Friendly Club. It was while affiliated with this group that Smith first became interested in championing women’s rights.
In 1797, Smith announced her engagement to Philadelphia publisher Samuel Harrison Smith, who happened to be her second cousin. However, as her marriage grew imminent, Smith composed an essay about her fear of marriage. She published the piece, “The Evils of Reserve in Marriage,” in the Monthly Magazine and American Review in 1800. That same year, Smith married. She also produced her second piece for the same periodical, “Lines by a Young Lady, Written at the Falls of Passaick, July, 1800.”
Smith and her husband shortly moved to Washington, D.C., where her husband continued production of his Republican newspaper, the National Intelligencer. Smith’s writing fell off dramatically after the move as she found herself overwhelmed by domestic duties. Smith became pregnant fifteen times, but only delivered four living children. She struggled to supervise a large household staff, entertain, and care for her children. It is thought that during the first ten years of her life in the nation’s capitol, Smith managed to published only one piece, the children’s story The Diversions of Sidney, by a Friend of Youth.
Smith and her husband were abolitionists and relatively vocal about their stance on the topic. Smith did have many paid black servants, and in the early 1800’s set about recording their personal histories in her diary. She later used these stories in her own writings.
In the 1820’s, Smith renewed her writing career with the novel American Mother: Or, The Seymour Family, which was published anonymously. Two more anonymous tomes followed: Winter in Washington: Or, Memoirs of the Seymour Family, and What Is Gentility? A Moral Tale. In the following decade, Smith contributed articles to the Ladies’ Magazine and Literary Gazette. Smith was an activist, political commentator, and noted observer of society, which characterized all of her work, both fiction and nonfiction.