Harriet MartineauHarriet Martineau (12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist and Whig writer often seen as the first female sociologist. She wrote many books and essays from a sociological, holistic, religious, domestic and feminine perspective, translated works by Auguste Comte, and earned enough to support herself by writing, a rare feat for a woman of her period. In 1848 she published a book about her travels in the East, including Egypt: "Eastern Live Present and Past".