Susan Mansfield Huntington
Susan Mansfield Huntington, born in Connecticut in 1791, was a prominent figure in early American religious and social life. As the daughter of a minister and a descendant of the colonial minister John Eliot, she made a public declaration of her religious commitment at the age of seventeen. In 1809, she married Joshua Huntington, a Yale graduate and fellow minister, taking on the challenging role of a minister's wife while raising six children. Throughout her life, Huntington maintained numerous journals, which, despite some being destroyed, provided valuable insights into the domestic and social expectations of women in early 19th-century New England.
Huntington was actively involved in women's benevolent societies and played a crucial role in various charitable organizations, including the Boston Female Tract Society. Her written works, particularly "Little Lucy: Or, The Careless Child Reformed," published in 1820, advocated for moral education among children and influenced similar works. Additionally, she addressed adults in her writings, urging them to remain vigilant in their faith, especially those facing illness. Huntington's legacy reflects the complexities of women's roles in society during her time, as well as her commitment to religious and moral instruction. She passed away in 1823, four years after her husband's death.
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Susan Mansfield Huntington
Fiction and Children's Literature Writer
- Born: January 27, 1791
- Birthplace: Killingworth, Connecticut
- Died: December 4, 1823
- Place of death: Boston, Massachusetts
Biography
Susan Mansfield Huntington was born in Connecticut in 1791, the daughter of a minister and the descendent of a famous colonial minister to Native Americans, John Eliot. At seventeen, Huntington made a public announcement of her religious devotion and joined her father’s church. In 1809, she married a young minister, Joshua Huntington, who had not long before graduated from Yale. The demands of an early American minister’s wife weighed heavily on Huntington’s mind, as she was reminded by a parishioner that it seemed impossible to assist her husband and simultaneously care for her children. (Huntington would have six.)
Huntington kept numerous journals throughout her life, although she destroyed some of them prior to her death, as she had intended them to not be for viewing by anyone else. The journals that survived offer glimpses into the home and social life of women in New England just after the turn of the eighteenth century. Huntington’s reports provided insight to the moral and social expectations of women. She was acutely aware that her right actions and behavior could enhance her husband’s esteem. Her missteps were certain to present the congregation with opportunity to call into question Huntington’s piety and abilities.
An early figure in women’s benevolent societies, Huntington was perhaps overly generous with her own time and sources. Churches were in need of congregants and their money. As Americans moved west, the churches had to attract new people to church. The New England Tract Society, the American Education Society, and the Boston Society for Religious and Moral Instruction of the Poor were prominent organizations in the struggle to rebuild congregations. In addition to involvement with these groups, Huntington became director of both the Boston Female Tract Society and the Boston Maternal Association, and had liaisons with three more charitable organizations, and membership in six other benevolent societies.
Little Lucy: Or, The Careless Child Reformed, published in 1820, was a collection of Huntington’s prescriptions for the moral education of children and owed its namesake to Maria Edgeworth’s book Harry and Lucy, written in 1801. Huntington’s Little Lucy: Or, The Careless Child Reformed spawned numerous Little Lucy imitators. Huntington was no less directive with adults, even the ill, who must be certain to repent. In Short Address to Sick Persons Who Are Without Hope, and, Letter to a Friend Recovered From Sickness, published in 1818, Huntington preaches that it is a favor to the sick to admonish them, so that they remain vigilant in the face of the coming judgment day. Huntington died in 1823, four years after her husband died at thirty-three.