Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau was an English social theorist and Whig writer often seen as the first female sociologist. She wrote many books and essays from a sociological, holistic, religious, domestic and feminine perspective, translated works by Auguste Comte, and earned enough to support herself by writing, a rare feat for a woman of her period. The young Princess Victoria enjoyed reading her and invited her to her coronation in 1838. Martineau said of her approach, "One must focus on all [society's] aspects, including key political, religious, and social institutions." She believed thorough analysis was needed to understand women's status under men. The novelist Margaret Oliphant said "as a born lecturer and politician... less distinctively affected by her sex than perhaps any other, male or female, of her generation."