"Have I imparted to others, a single pious sentiment, or moral precept for the direction of conduct""-- Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney once wrote in " Self-Examination," an 8 April 1821 letter held at the Connecticut Historical Society. Sigourney believed that her moral development was inextricably bound to her ability to impart moral sentiments to others. Though twentieth-century critics have derided her writing as excessively sentimental and moralistic, a valid assessment of her prose must consider her self-proclaimed goals. Sigourney's belief in self-examination reveals that she imagined her life as a female version of Benjamin Franklin's. Like Franklin, she believed that her own betterment led to the betterment of the nation, or, as she put it, the United States "has been uplifted by her self-made men." Like Franklin too, she used the printed word to gain respectability, wealth, and fame. Of humble birth and limited formal education, Sigourney used her talents...