Author. She was a prolific American novelist and biographer of the early 19th century and the daughter of Theodore Sedgwick, a successful lawyer and Federalist politician. She published six novels, two biographies, eight works for children, novellas, over 100 pieces of short prose and other works. Born Catharine Maria Sedgwick, one of ten children of her father's second wife, Pamela Dwight, she lived a comfortable life before beginning her forty-year career as an author. After attending local schools and being tutored at home for her basic education, she attended Mrs. Bell's Boarding School in Albany, New York, as a day-student, and at the age of 15, she was sent to Payne's Finishing School in Boston for six months to complete her education. As a child, her care was provided by the former slave Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman and in her autobiography, she goes into detail about their close relationship. Often, her father was away from home on political business. Her mother loved her but they had a distant relationship, especially when her mother was suffering from bouts of depression. All four of her brothers became lawyers and as an adult, she would stay at their homes, becoming a devoted aunt to her nieces and nephews. Published in 1822, her first piece was "A New England Tale: Mary Hollis". What started as a Unitarian tact bloomed into a full novel. This piece was written after she rejected her parent's Calvinist faith for the more liberal Unitarian Church, joining in 1821. Her writing often echoed her religious reasoning. Providing herself with a comfortable income, her work was in much demand, from the 1820s to the 1850s. Her writing promoted patriotism and nature, while creating spirited heroines who did not conform to the stereotypical conduct of women of that era. Her 1824 novel, "Redwood" was set in a Shaker community and was translated into French and Italian, besides being reprinted in England. Her most celebrated novel is the 1827 "Hope Leslie", which is set in the sixteenth-century Puritan colony in Massachusetts and deals with the interrelationships between the new European settlers and the Native Americans. With James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans" being published in 1826, she is credited as the first American female author to write about Native Americans. Although she supported abolitionism, Indian rights, and women's rights, she was not active in any movements, but her books inspired ladies who did become active. The 1835 novel, "The Linwoods" deals with the relationships of people in New York in the last two years of the Revolutionary War. Her last publication was "A Sketch from Life" in 1862. She participated in the work of the Women's Prison Association of New York, of which she was "first director" from its incorporation in 1854 until her death. At one point, she was engaged to marry United States Congressman Harmanus Bleecker, her father's law partner and politician, but did not marry him or any of the other men who proposed marriage to her. She never married but instead devoted her life to writing and caring for her parents and other family members. She died at the residence of her nephew William Minot, Jr. By the end of the 19th century, her writing had fallen out of flavor but by mid-20th century, she was being recognized for her contributions to American Literature as a female author. To promote her as female author, the Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society was founded in 1997