Key Figures in Margaret Fuller's Networks
In this exhibit, we present several figures that participated in Margaret Fuller's networks in Europe, and we explore their role in circulating and disseminating revolutionary ideas.
Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso was an Italian aristocrat, who was active during the revolutionary upheavals in the Italian peninsula. She met Fuller during the Roman Republic, Fuller would connect her to Greeley, who published her "Letters of an Exile" in the New York Tribune in 1850-1851.
Horace Greeley was the editor of the New York Tribune, and one of the leading American public figures of his day. In 1846 he hired Fuller to become the literary editor of the newspaper. He agreed to sponsor Fuller's travels to Europe, and regularly published her "Things and Thoughts in Europe" correspondence on the homepage of the Tribune.
Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian politician who played a crucial role in the Italian Risorgimento. Fuller first met Mazzini years earlier in London and then reunited with him during the Roman Republic in 1849. Mazzini often published articles about republican futures in Europe, which sparked the debate about revolutions and reforms in Europe, which held the attention of Margaret Fuller, with her later referring to him as one of the most interesting figures she met during her travels across Europe.
All of these figures were crucial in generating publications and disseminating ideas on political alternatives to the monarchical and imperial models, while expanding people's participation in a transnational public sphere. This exhibit seeks to give its visitors basic information about the background of these players in hopes that it paints a full picture of who Fuller was involved with during her European years.