Lydia Maria (Francis) Child was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1802. She published her first novel, Hobomok, in 1824, when she was 22 years old. By 1833, her writings had earned her a place in Boston’s literary circles. She was acclaimed by the eminent scholar George Ticknor, enjoyed a membership at the elite Boston Athenæum, and was the author of fifteen works.

“[W]e are not sure that any woman in our country would outrank Mrs. Child. … Few female writers, if any, have done more or better things for our literature.” — “The Works of Mrs. Child,” from The North American Review, C. 1, V. 37, July 1833.

“It is not too much to say that…she was the most popular literary woman in the United States.” — John G. Whittier, Introduction from Letters of Lydia Maria Child, 1883.

Four years earlier, Child had received praise from a very different source: the radical abolitionist editor, William Lloyd Garrison. Hoping to recruit this skilled and influential woman for his cause, he hailed her as “the first woman in the republic.” When the two met in 1830, Child would be forced to choose between her literary aspirations and the appeals of Garrison and her own conscience.

“I little thought then that the whole pattern of my life-web would be changed by that introduction. I was then all absorbed in poetry and painting,—soaring aloft. … [Garrison] got hold of the strings of my conscience, and pulled me into Reforms.” — Lydia Maria Child, to Anne Whitney, 25 May 1879.