Mary Wollstonecraft (Zack Johnson)

Good day.  My name is Mary Wollstonecraft.  I was born on April 27, 1759 in the beautiful city that is London, England.  However, my childhood was not so beautiful.  Our family began with a rather larger fortune.  Nonetheless, my father saw fit to rashly spend enormous sums of money on farm ventures about which he knew very little.  Logically, these ventures failed terribly.  My mother died when I was 21.  Thus, I sought to leave this life of misfortune behind.  My sister, my best friend and I created a school in the quaint little town of Newington Green.  I taught here for many years.  It was these experiences teaching that led to me to form my opinions on women’s rights.  I soon published my first book, titled Thoughts on the Education of Daughters.  Post teaching, I became a governess in Ireland.  I couldn’t stand it and its mind numbingly slow pace.  Thus, I sought to further my career in other directions. I became a journalist, a scholar, and a highly regarded philosopher.  My true passion, however, continue to lie in women’s rights.  I focused most of my time on this topic.  I believe that although women have a duty to be a good mother, we also have the need to have a say in our own affairs as well as in public life.  Our husbands should not rule over us.  The path to these rights is through education.  In order to encompass these opinions and promote them, I wrote numerous other works.  The most famous is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.  I had one child with Gilbert Imlay, a girl named Fanny.  After having Fanny, he left me and I fell for William Godwin. We married soon after.  We had one child named Mary.  I died ten days after having her.