New play rediscovers Margaret Fuller

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18 Socialist Action June 1984 Margaret Fuller Ossoli, considered by some one of the most important women of the 19th century, has been rediscovered in "The Margaret Ghost" a new play by Carole Braverman. Fuller was the first major female literary critic, and first female foreign correspondent in the United States. The play, divided into three acts, spans crucial aspects of her life: her involvement with the Transcendentalists, her career as a reporter for the New York Tribune, and her years in Italy during the civil war of 1847.

Act I covers her involvement with the Transcendentalist movement in Boston, where she collaborated with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, ...AIDS epidemic (continued from page 20: “AIDS: Blaming the victim”)

about preserving murderous, unpopular governments in Central America, than it does about preventing its own people from dying from AIDS.

The Appropriations Committees of both houses of Congress will be holding hearings in June or July to consider the 1985 AIDS budget. In light of the new research and the hearings soon to occur in Congress, it is more crucial than ever that gays, lesbians, and their supporters launch a national campaign to demand massive emergency funding to end the AIDS epidemic. What is done now can make a difference in saving lives.

The May 1983 candlelight march in and Henry David Thoreau. At this time, while Fuller is editor of The Dial (the Transcendentalists' newspaper), she is also writing a biography of the German novelist Johann Goethe. Although on the surface it appears that Fuller is leading an active life, she seems restless, preoccupied with what others think of her. Indeed many consider her a freak. The Victorian era of the 1830s was not very kind to women like Fuller who rejected the limitations society imposed on them.

Gradually, however, Fuller breaks away from the Bostonian enclave of intellectuals. Bell Gale Chevigny, in her book, "The Woman and the Myth,' explains Fuller's growing dissatisfaction with the Transcendentalists who, "while critical of the established order, offered San Francisco where thousands demonstrated behind the banner "Fighting for Our Lives" is an example of the kind of actions that need to be organized.

Some initial organizing has begun. The May 12 edition of Gay Community News reported an AIDS conference recently held in Boston. The keynote speech was given by Larry Kramer, one of the founders of New York Gay Men's Health Crisis. New York has the highest incidence of AIDS in the nation. According to Kramer, Congress and the executive branch officials failed to budget adequate funds for AIDS because no one pressured them. Kramer blamed inadequate gay leadership on a national level. "The only thing that works is visibility, noise, constant repetition? Kramer said. no alternative program for change""

Her career as the first female reporter for the Tribune is covered in Act II. Her pen is very sharp in her depiction of urban life and shows a concern for women's rights and the plight of the newly arrived immigrants.

To the consternation of Horace Greeley, who as editor of the Tribune insists that she focus on literary criticism, Fuller increasingly uses her column as a mouthpiece for the exiled Italian revolutionist, Guiseppe Mazzini. The play portrays Fuller as waging an internal battle concerning the extent to which she should participate in the fight for the social reforms she called for. Chevigny states in her book, "Writing was a struggle, because in it she felt she committed herself to one part of herself while betraying another""

Reporter in Italy

At Mazzini's invitation, Fuller goes to Italy. She witnesses the rapidly unfolding events as a reporter for the Tribune. By now it is evident that Fuller has broken with the Transcendentalist movement and has rejected a philosophy of distancing oneself from the real world. The play depicts a conversation with Hawthorne in Italy that reveals this new aspect of her consciousness. Hawthorne, who is cynical about the Italian revolution, states, "What has the world gained from so much bloodshed but a change in tyrants. Men's hearts are corrupt." Fuller argues back, "It's not men's hearts that are corrupt, but their institutions"' Act Ill centers on her life in Italy with her husband, Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, with whom she has a child. Ossoli is enlisted in the nationalist Civic Guard, while Margaret writes on the civil war and tends to the wounded at the front lines.

Unfortunately the play at this point fails to do justice to Fuller's life. During the period 1847-48 Europe was convulsed with social revolutions. The Italian civil war was but the first in a series of mass upheavals that shook the major capitalist regimes of Europe. The play doesn't sufficiently reflect the influence of these social events on her political development. There is no mention of her relationship with novelist George Sand, one of France's leading feminists, or with Adam Mickewicz, the nationalist Polish poet. Too much time is spent on her personality and ambitions, while her political development and participation in these social events in Europe are only touched upon lightly.

Fuller, Ossoli, and their child were killed when their boat returning from Europe sank off the coast of Fire Island May 17, 1850. Her eyewitness account of the Italian civil war, which would have been an important contribution to the understanding of modern Italian history, was lost in the accident.

But Fuller left a legacy which is succinctly summed up by Paula Blanchard in her book, "Margaret Fuller from Transcendentalist to Revolution:"

"She brought a unique journalistic perspective to mid-century revolutionary Europe, where she was put in the position-the irony of which she fully understood—of seeing the Old World transformed by early American ideals, even while America itself began to turn away from them?"

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"Good Morning, Revolution:'

"The Black Experience," The Ayer Co., Salem, N.H., 03079 This catalog of books issued in observance of Black History Month is far superior in quality, range, and depth to any previous collection that I am familiar with. It is possible to acquire some useful knowledge of Black history just by reading the descriptions The publisher is right: "Rarely—if ever—has such a massive array of titles on the Black experience been assembled. The earliest books represented here were published in 1729; the latest, in 1982? Organized into 42 subject categories, the catalog covers virtually Here are just a few of the signficant titles in the catalog:

• "Black Africa,, a collection of New York Times articles on Africa from 1880 to 1972. "Black Africa" chronicles a continent "in transition from colonial-imperial domination by the Western European powers to the sweeping national liberation movements • "Minutes of the Proceedings of the National Negro Conventions: 1830-1864?, details the efforts of such noted Black freedomfighters as Frederick Douglass, Martin R. Delaney, and others, as they met to map out their fight against slavery in the South and to gain equal rights for Blacks in the North.

• "These Are Our Lives" was a product of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) writers' project set up during the Great Depression. This volume contains first-hand accounts by Black and white farmers and workers from North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, describing the effects of the Depression on their • The Crisis consists of several volumes covering the history of the first 50 years of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). For much of its history, The Crisis was one of the few, and at times the only national publication in the United States that challenged the widely accepted concept of white supremacy. These volumes are divided into three sections: 1910-1927, 1928-1940, and 1941-1960.

• "American Slavery As It Is" consists of the testimony of a thousand witnesses. It is a carefully documented collection that ACTiON exposes the horrendous brutality of slavery in the United States. It was first published in 1839 by Theodore Weld, a prominent, uncompromising white abolitionist.

I highly recommend this catalog to all serious students of Black history. Today's activists and revolutionaries will be amply rewarded by having ready access to this treasure.

Carpio death Dear friends, By KWAME M.A. SOMBURU After reading the documents in your March issue on Salvador Cayetano Carpio and the split in the FMLN, I would like to subscribe to Socialist Action. It is just incredible to me that no other periodical I have seen has really dealt with these issues of the publications.

which are certainly of great significance to the struggle in El Salvador. I will be very interested in learning about further developments on these every aspect of Black history.

subjects as more information becomes available.

Margaret Low Los Angeles of the 1960s?' Dear people, I enjoyed the March issue of Socialist Action very much.

It was the first issue I had read. Your approach of giving history to the issues addressed in the article educated as well as informed me. It is important to put events in their historical perspective and not lives.

merely to report them and make generalized comments. 1 particularly found the Forum on the split in the FPL in El Salvador to be valuable in addressing the cause or at least trying to uncover it.

Boston Socialist Action P.O. Box 1046 GMF Boston, MA 02205 Buffalo Socialist Action P.O. Box 275 Buffalo, N.Y. 14207 None of the other publications I receive on Central America attempted to do so. I enclose $1 for three months to see how I like the paper initially. You are doing respectable work.

Kara Fishman Evanston, IL Dear editor, What U.S. readers need to know most desperately concerning the issue of Central America is the state of the anti-intervention movement. As far as El Salvador, we need information on the overall situation, but it should be presented in a way that urges unity in the struggle and combats centrifugal tendencies. The presentation of sensitive material should be extremely cautious.

We can say only one thing for certain concerning the statements around Carpio (Socialist Action, March, 1984)—they reflect a serious debate over perspectives in the revolutionary vanguard in El Salvador. As to the substance of the charges against him— we have nothing from either side of the question except the assertions of militants engaged in a heated struggle over what to do.

David Rossi Houston Houston Socialist Action University of Housto Box 551, 4800 Calhor Mel Mason Dear Socialist Action editor:

Since your newspaper is calling for support to the Socialist Workers Party campaign for president, don't you think that you should comment on their campaign newspaper, The Militant, having dropped all criticism of Jesse Jackson in the last many issues, and having leaped to Jackson's defense against the obviously correct charges of anti-Semitism against him?

The SWP has recently released a statement in the name of Mel Mason, their presidential candidate, again denying Jackson's blatant anti-semitism and equating criticism of Jackson on this score with an attack on the entire Black community.

Arthur Maglin Brooklyn, N.Y.

Editor's Reply:

The issues you raise are far too complex to take up in a brief answer. In the July issue of Socialist Action, we will be running a special "FORUM"

section on the 1984 elections and our support of the Mel Mason campaign.

WHERE TO FIND US:

Phoenix Socialist Action P.O. Box 5161 Phoenix, AZ 85010