Harriet Hanson Robinson – former mill girl, writer and suffragist

By Inna Babitskaya

Malden resident Harriet Hanson Robinson (1825-1911) was one of the most outstanding American women of the 19th century; someone who not only made herself but also impacted history. Robinson played a significant role in the history of women’s rights, being an avid public speaker, writer and educator. She also was a historiographer, creating unique work about Massachusetts’ input into the suffragette movement and describing the Lowell mill girls.

Harriet was born in Boston in 1825 to William Hanson and Harriet (Browne) Hanson. William Hanson was a poor carpenter and died when Harriet was a six-year-old. The 36-year-old widow’s attempt to support herself and her children by opening a grocery store wasn’t successful. So, she gladly accepted her elder sister’s offer to become a housekeeper at the Lowell textile mill boardinghouse.

In 1835, 10-year-old Harriet became a bobbin doffer at the Tremont Corporation. When mill owners decided to cut salaries and to cease payment for the workers’ room and board, workers went on strike. Surprisingly, it was young Harriet who convinced her elder coworkers to join it. However, the strike didn’t lead to the expected results. The wages were cut. Moreover, Harriet and her mother lost their jobs.

Being an ardent learner, she took classes at evening schools for factory operatives in Lowell. At age 13, Harriet left her job at the mills for two years to attend Lowell High School. There she learned French, Latin, and English grammar and composition. She used her salary to pay for private lessons in drawing, German and dancing.

In her first essays – “Poverty Not Disgraceful” and “Indolence and Industry” – she tried to analyze the working people’s lives.

While actively participating in many of the Lowell literary groups, she began to write poetry, short stories and essays about abolition of slavery and women’s rights. Some of her early works were published in The Lowell Offering, a unique literary magazine created for and by mill girls. There she met the journal editor, William Stevens Robinson (1818-1876), a talented journalist and politician, future founder of the “Free Soil” party and an author of the anti-slavery articles (under the pen-name “Warrington”) and “Warrington’s Manual of Parliamentary Law.”

Harriet and William married in 1848. At first they lived in Lowell and Concord; in 1857 they moved to Malden. Their former house on 35 Lincoln St., where the Malden Women’s Suffrage Association was founded, was declared a Malden landmark in 1976. The Robinsons had four children, three of whom lived into adulthood.

Harriet joined William in his political activity and continued to write, acting as his “silent partner.” Her husband’s influence helped to form Harriet’s political and social beliefs.

(Inna Babitskaya is a Malden historian and member of the Malden Historical Commission.)