Wright founded the Nashoba Commune in 1825, intending to educate slaves to prepare them for freedom and colonization in Haiti. Nashoba was based on Owen's New Harmony settlement and theories of racial equality, but outlasted New Harmony. Nashoba lasted until Wright became ill with malaria and moved back to Europe to recover. The interim management of Nashoba did not take Wright's benevolent approach to the slaves living in Nashoba. Rumors spread of inter-racial marriage and the Commune fell into financial difficulty, eventually leading to its closing.
As an activist in the American Popular Health Movement between 1830 and 1840, Wright brought acceptance to women being involved in health and medicine. After the midterm political campaign of 1838, Wright suffered from a variety of health problems. She died in 1852.
Wright was born to a wealthy family in Dundee, Scotland, the daughter of James Wright, designer of Dundee trade tokens.
Wright advocated abolition, universal equality in education, and feminism.
Wright's opposition to slavery and that of Robert Dale Owen (Robert Owen's son) contrasted to most other Democrats of the era, though their artisan radicalism distanced them from the leading abolitionists of the time.
FannyWright was a flamboyant and seductive young radical, an Owenite socialist who believed in free love, universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and miscegenation as a solution to racism.
Fanny Trollope was a mother of six (including the future novelist Anthony), struggling to keep her family afloat in the face of her husband's business failure, and inspired by Wright's vision of the paradise of Nashoba, and a new world of equality, prosperity, and opportunity.
Fanny is a bold and surprising departure for White, a revered writer of gay fiction and a Francophile biographer of Proust and Genet.
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