Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia are the sisters, and Massachusetts is their home state. The sisters are born between 1804 and 1809, and all led interesting, if not remarkable, lives. In addition to living through the Civil War, two of the sisters married well-known men (and in that era, women were usually more known for who they married than who they were). The eldest sister, Elizabeth, remained single, but was active, and outspoken, in many causes and projects throughout her life. The middle sister, Mary, was quiet, but seemed to work very effectively behind the scenes. Sophia was somewhat sickly as a young woman, but blossomed once she married.
Mary Peabody was married to Horace Mann, the champion of public education, and Sophia wed the author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Both women worked to assist their spouse in his chosen field. These two sisters became acquainted with a number of well-known people of that era through their husbands, but Elizabeth met a number of famous people as well. She didn’t just sit home and knit; she wrote books and articles, she opened a bookstore, and she taught school and championed the kindergarten movement in the United States. Her life, and the lives of her more cloistered, married sisters, are an interesting contrast in what women of the early 19th century could encounter and accomplish.
One aspect of the sisters’ lives that I found interesting was that the thing each sister seemed to turn to, especially Elizabeth, when she needed to earn money, was teaching. At numerous times, in numerous places, one or more of the sisters would “start a school”, merely by finding parents willing to let them teach their children. Since there were no public schools, this made some sense. Plus, this was one of the few “acceptable” jobs for a woman in that era. Not only did this work get them through some rough patches, but Elizabeth’s experience came in handy toward the end of her career.
If this was your family, how would you research them? One thing that helped the author with her research is that two of the sisters were married to famous men. Not only did she utilize diaries and letters to and from the sisters, but she researched document collections of their husbands, and of their and their husband’s friends and associates. Yes, their FAN club! And many of these individuals were well known in their own right. The sisters lived in various places, and the author seems to have done research at most of them.