Caroline Dall, from Transcendentalism in New England (1895)

Abstract CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY BALL (1822-1912) first came into the Transcendentalist circle in 1841, when she attended Margaret Fuller’s Conversations (which she later described in Margaret and Her Friends [1895]). An author, lecturer, and reformer, she early came under Parker’s influence and throughout her life maintained friendships (often rocky ones) with most of the first-and second-generation Transcendentalists, describing their activities in articles, books, and her voluminous unpublished journals. Her memoir, a unique feminist perspective on the movement, is intended “to give a strong, impressive picture of a wonderful era in New England life,” and she frames Transcendentalism by arguing for its origins in Anne Hutchinson and its conclusion, sadly, as this: “I do not think I am mistaken in saying that what is meant by New England Transcendentalism perished with Margaret Fuller.”