_THE LOWELL OFFERING_ (CONTINUED).
_The Lowell Offering_ was a small, thin magazine of about thirty pages,
with one column to the page. The price of the first number was six and
a quarter cents. Its title-page was plain, with a motto from Gray; the
verse beginning:--
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene.”
This motto was used for two years, when another was adopted:--
“Is Saul also among the prophets?”
In January, 1845, the magazine had on its outside cover a vignette, a
young girl simply dressed, with feet visible and sleeves rolled up. She
had a book in one hand, and her shawl and bonnet were thrown over her
arm. She was represented as standing in a very sentimental attitude,
contemplating a beehive at her right hand. This vignette was adopted,
as the editor said, “To represent the New England schoolgirl, of which
our factories are made up, standing near a beehive, emblem of industry
and intelligence, and in the background the Yankee schoolhouse, church,
and factory.” The motto was:--
“The worm on the earth
May look up to the star.”
This rather abject sentiment was not suited to the independent spirit
of most of the contributors, who did not feel a bit like worms; and in
the February number it was changed to one from Bunyan:--
“And do you think the words of your book are certainly true?
“Yea, verily.”
The magazine finally died, however, under its favorite motto:--
“Is Saul also among the prophets?”
The title-page, or outside cover, was copyrighted in 1845.
_The Lowell Offering_ was welcomed with pleased surprise. It found
subscribers all over the country. _The North American Review_, whose
literary _dictum_ was more autocratic than it is to-day, indorsed it,
and expressed a fair opinion of its literary merit.
The editor, John G. Palfrey, said:--
“Many of the articles are such as to satisfy the reader at once, that
if he has only taken up _The Offering_ as a phenomenon, and not as
what may bear criticism and reward perusal, he has but to own his
error, and dismiss his condescension as soon as may be.”
Charles Dickens, in his “American Notes,” says:--
“They have got up among themselves a periodical, called _The Lowell
Offering_, whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good
solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end. Of the merits
of _The Lowell Offering_, as a literary production, I will only
observe--putting out of sight the fact of the articles having been
written by these girls after the arduous hours of the day--that it
will compare advantageously with a great many English annuals.”
Harriet Martineau prompted a fine review of it in the London
_Athenæum_, and a selection from Volumes I. and II. was published under
her direction, called “Mind Among the Spindles.”
This book was issued first in London, in 1844, and republished in
Boston in 1845, with an introduction by the English editor, Mr.
Knight. In a letter to this gentleman, Miss Martineau said, “I had
the opportunity of observing the invigorating effect of ‘Mind among
the Spindles,’ in a life of labor. Twice the wages and half the
toil would not have made the girls I saw happy and healthy, without
that cultivation of mind which afforded them perpetual support,
entertainment, and motive for activity. They were not highly educated;
but they had pleasure in books and lectures, in correspondence with
home, and had their minds so open to fresh ideas as to be drawn off
from thoughts of themselves and their own concerns.”
English friends were particularly kind in their expressions of
approval. One said, “_The Lowell Offering_ is probably exciting more
attention in England than any other American publication. It is talked
of in the political, as well as in the literary world.... It has given
rise to a new idea, that there may be mind among the spindles.... The
book is a stubborn fact.”
President Felton of Harvard University, while in Paris attending a
course of lectures on English Literature by Philarète Chastles, heard
an entire lecture on the history and literary merits of _The Lowell
Offering_.
Thiers, the French historian, carried a volume into the Chamber of
Deputies, to show what working-women in a republic could do.
George Sand (Madame Dudevant) thought it a great and wonderful thing
that the American mill-girls should write and edit a magazine of their
own.
_Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal_ gave _The Offering_ a rather
_back-handed_ compliment, which is quoted to show the old-time
prejudice against _female_ writers. It said,--
“Constrained to speak candidly, we have found amongst the pieces few
which would have any chance of admission into a British periodical
above the humblest class; yet it must also be admitted, that even
where there is no positive attraction, there is nothing irreconcilable
with good taste; and some of the articles, the verse as well as the
prose, would appear as respectable efforts for females of any rank in
life.”
It may be said that at one time the fame of _The Lowell Offering_
caused the mill-girls to be considered very desirable for wives;
and that young men came from near and far to pick and choose for
themselves, and generally with good success. No doubt these young men
thought that, if a young woman had the writing talent, rare in those
days, she naturally would have other rare talents towards the making
of a good wife; and I can say that my own knowledge, added to recent
inquiries, confirms this belief.
The fact was often disputed that a “factory-girl” could write for or
edit a magazine, since she had hitherto been considered little better
than the loom or frame she tended. Inquiries on the subject came to the
editors from different parts of the country, and questions like the
following were often put to them: “Do the factory-girls really _write_
the articles published in _The Offering_?” or, “Do you print them just
as they are sent?” or, “Do you revise or rewrite them?”
In the preface to the first volume, Mr. Thomas answered these
questions. He says, “The articles are all written by factory-girls, and
_we do not_ revise or re-write them. We have taken less liberty with
them than editors usually take with other than the most inexperienced
writers.” He adds, “Communications much amended in process of training
the writers were rigidly excluded from print; and such articles only
were published as had been written by females employed in the mills.”
He continues, “and thus was published not only the first work written
by factory-girls, but also the first magazine or journal written
exclusively by women in all the world.”
The contributions to _The Offering_ were on a great variety of
subjects. There were allegories, poems, conversations on physiology,
astronomy, and other scientific subjects, dissertations on poetry,
and on the beauties of nature, didactic pieces on highly moral and
religious subjects, translations from French and Latin, stories of
factory and other life, sketches of local New England history, and
sometimes the chapters of a novel. Miss Curtis, in 1840, wrote an
article on “Woman’s Rights,” in which were so many familiar arguments
in favor of the equality of the sexes, that it might have been the
production of the pen of almost any modern advocate of woman’s rights;
but there was this difference, that the writer, though she felt
sure of her ground, was too timid to maintain it against the world,
and towards the end throws out the query, “whether public life is,
after all, woman’s most appropriate and congenial sphere?” It is a
curious coincidence, that at this date the English and the American
Anti-Slavery Associations were at the point of division on this very
question.
There is a certain flavor in all _The Lowell Offering_ writings, both
in prose and verse, which reminds one of the books read by the authors,
and the models they followed in their compositions. The poetry savors
of Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Hemans, Miss Landon, Mrs. Barbauld, Milton,
Pope, Cowper, and Hannah More. Byron’s sardonic vein is copied by one
or two of the most independent minds among them. The prose models of
writing were _The Spectator_, the English classics, “Miss Sedgwick’s
Letters,” “The Vicar of Wakefield,” and Lydia Maria Child’s writings.
Though the literary character of these writings may not rise to
the present standard of such productions, yet at that season of
intellectual dearth they must have had a certain influence on
contemporary literature; and viewed by the critical eye of a later
date, it is found that the selections from _The Lowell Offering_ will
compare quite favorably with those in the “Ladies’ annuals” of the same
date, as, for instance, _The Lady’s Repository_, _The Rose of Sharon_,
_The Lily of the Valley_, _Gems of Beauty_, _The Opal_, and other like
literary curiosities, of which _The Lowell Offering_ may well be ranked
as one, and with which, no doubt, it will hold its place in the history
of American publications.
These factory-girl writers did not confine their talents within the
pages of their own publication. Many of them wrote for the literary
newspapers and magazines. One sometimes filled the poet’s corner
in _Zion’s Herald_ and in the _Saturday Evening Gazette_; another
took that envied place in _The Ladies’ Casket_; a third sent poetic
effusions to _The Lowell Courier and Journal_.
These authors represent what may be called the poetic element of
factory-life. They were the ideal mill-girls, full of hopes, desires,
aspirations; poets of the loom, spinners of verse, artists of
factory-life.
_The Lowell Offering_ did a good work, not only among the operatives
themselves, but among the rural population from which they had been
drawn. It was almost the only magazine that reached their secluded
homes, where it was lent from house to house, read and re-read,
and thus set the women to thinking, and added its little leaven of
progressive thought to the times in which it lived. Its influence
or its memory is not by any means forgotten; and if a newspaper or
magazine which had so brief an existence is so well remembered after at
least fifty years, when the novelty of such a publication is all worn
away, it shows that it must have had some vitality, something in it
worthy of preservation.
It was considered good Sunday reading. A friend told me recently that
as a child she used to watch for its coming, and how much she liked
it, because her father, a clergyman, allowed her to read it on Sunday;
and on that day it was placed on the table with the Bible, while other
secular reading-matter was excluded. Another has said that she used to
get the themes for her “compositions” out of the pages of _The Lowell
Offering_.
The names of _The Lowell Offering_ writers, so far as I have been
able to gather them, are as follows: Sarah G. Bagley, Josephine L.
Baker, Lucy Ann Baker, Caroline Bean, Adeline Bradley, Fidelia O.
Brown, M. Bryant, Alice Ann Carter, Joanna Carroll, Eliza J. Cate,
Betsey Chamberlain, L. A. Choate, Kate Clapp, Louisa Currier, Maria
Currier, Lura Currier, Harriot F. Curtis, Catherine Dodge, M. A. Dodge,
Harriet Farley, Margaret F. Foley, A. M. Fosdick, Abby A. Goddard, M.
R. Green, Lydia S. Hall, Jane B. Hamilton, Harriet Jane Hanson, Eliza
Rice Holbrook, Eliza W. Jennings, Hannah Johnson, E. Kidder, Miss Lane,
Emmeline Larcom, Lucy Larcom, L. E. Leavitt, Harriet Lees, Mary A.
Leonard, Sarah E. Martin, Mary J. McAffee, E. D. Perver, E. S. Pope,
Nancy R. Rainey, Sarah Shedd, Ellen L. Smith, Ellen M. Smith, Laura
Spaulding, Mary Ann Spaulding, Emmeline Sprague, S. W. Stewart, Laura
Tay, Rebecca C. Thompson, Abby D. Turner, Elizabeth E. Turner, Jane S.
Welch, Caroline H. Whitney, A. E. Wilson, Adeline H. Winship, and Sabra
Wright, fifty-seven in all.
Most of the writers signed fictitious names, such as Ella, Adelaide,
Dorcas, Aramantha, Stella, Kate, Oriana, Ruth Rover, Ione, Dolly
Dindle, Grace Gayfeather, and many others.
In 1848 seven books had been published, written by contributors to _The
Lowell Offering_. These were “Lights and Shadows of Factory Life,” and
“Rural Scenes in New England,” by Eliza Jane Cate; “Kate in Search of
a Husband,” “Jessie’s Flirtations,” and “S. S. Philosophy,” by Harriot
F. Curtis; “Domestic Sketches” by Abby A. Goddard, and “Shells from the
Strand of the Sea of Genius” by Harriet Farley.
Not many of the lesser lights continued to write after their
contributions were no longer in demand for _The Offering_. But there
were a few who had written for the pure love of it, and who, in spite
of their other duties, and a restricted life, still clung “to the
dreams of their youth,” and kept up the writing habit, even beyond the
verge of the allotted threescore years and ten.
There is hardly a complete set of _The Lowell Offering_ in existence. I
have Miss Larcom’s copies, which, added to my own, the result of many
years of collecting, in the shape of gifts, make as complete a set as I
have been able to find. The 1847 copy I never heard of outside my own
collection. Mr. L. L. Libbie of Boston has nearly a full set, with a
rare collection of bibliology relating to the magazine.
The volumes in the State Library are neither perfect nor consecutively
bound. A set of _The Lowell Offering_, complete to 1847, was sent
by the mayor of Lowell to the mayor of Paris, “all neatly bound and
lettered.”
There are odd volumes, no doubt, in libraries or in private
collections, but they are not complete enough to give an adequate
idea of the magazine; and unless such a book as this were written, an
historical record of what is now considered a most interesting phase
in the history of early factory labor would not be preserved. I may
add to this, that the Lowell Public Library contains the first five
volumes, which are _The Lowell Offering_ proper. In closing this brief
sketch of _The Lowell Offering_, it may be well to quote Mr. Thomas’s
letter, written to the _Vox Populi_, Lowell, in answer to a request for
information with regard to his connection with the magazine.
_Dear Sir_,--Your letter of December 9th, 1872, solicits me to
furnish, in some detail, the facts, as I now remember them, respecting
the origin and early history of _The Lowell Offering_, the writers for
it, etc.
It would seem, by your epistle, that you have seen, and perhaps
own, the second and later series of the unique publication, but
that you question whether a copy of the first four numbers is in
existence--indicating, I judge, that you have sought for them in vain.
I am happy to inform you that your apprehension of total loss is
“ruled out” by my possession of two complete sets of those first four
numbers, lacking only the printed cover of Number One. You will not
be surprised that my sons, to whom they belong, are unwilling to part
with these memorials of their father’s brief residence in Lowell; but
I hope that your earnest antiquarian call will awaken a response among
the hidden or forgotten things of some one of your many readers.
Meanwhile I will endeavor to make a compact statement of what
you desire, with no more of personality than is necessary to an
intelligible narrative.
Number 1 of _The Lowell Offering_ was published in October, 1840. No.
2 was issued in December following. No. 3 appeared in February, 1841,
and No. 4 in March. Printed by A. Watson, 15 Central Street. Each
number consisted of sixteen pages small quarto, double columns, in
small pica solid, and was sold at retail for six and one-fourth cents.
I have forgotten how many copies were printed. The third and fourth
pages of a plain cover were devoted to advertisements of less than an
average of one inch brevier, and in this way we managed to ‘make both
ends meet.’
In No. 2 appeared the following note, the words in brackets being here
inserted in the way of explanation.
“A social meeting, denominated Improvement Circle, was established in
this city about a twelve-month since [by the Rev. A. C. Thomas, pastor
of the Second Universalist Church]. At the sessions of this Circle,
which have been holden one evening in a fortnight, communications
(previously received by the gentleman in charge) have been read, the
names of the writers not being announced. The largest range of subject
has been allowed: fiction and fact, poetry and prose, science and
letters, religion and morals; and in composition the style has been
humorous or otherwise, according to the various taste or talent of
the writers. The reading of these articles has constituted the sole
entertainment of the meetings of the Circle. The interest thus excited
has given a remarkable impulse to the intellectual energies of our
population.
“At a social meeting for divine worship connected with one of our
societies (First Universalist Church, the Rev. T. B. Thayer, pastor),
communications, chiefly of a religious character, have been read,
during several years past. The alternate weekly session of this
Conference was appropriated mainly to communications, and denominated
Improvement Circle, soon after the institution of the one above
mentioned, and the interest has thereby been greatly increased.
“A selection from the budgets of articles furnished to these Circles,
together with a few communications derived from other sources,
constitutes _The Lowell Offering_, whereof the two gentlemen in charge
of the meetings aforesaid are the editors.
“We have been thus particular, partly to gratify the curiosity of
our readers, and partly to call attention to the advantage of such
social institutions for improvement in knowledge, and in the art
of composition. The meetings being free to all who are disposed to
attend, they may be likened to so many intellectual banquets, the
writers furnishing the feast of reason, while all present participate
in the flow of soul.”
Confessedly there was little novelty in the organization and conduct
of these Circles, excepting perhaps that the leaders took special
pains in private interviews, and by informal hints and criticisms at
the gatherings, to awaken and foster a desire for improvement. But the
honorable presentation to the world, in print, of a class of people
usually considered ignorant and degraded, was certainly a new thing
under the sun.
In the number of _The Offering_ for November, 1842, which was after
my removal from New England, Miss Harriet Farley, who was then in
editorial charge, published her personal knowledge of the origin,
etc., as follows:--
“The gentlemen were at liberty to contribute to the Circle, but they
were of no great assistance. Those who were not engaged in the mills
were also contributors, but it was soon found that the principal
interest of the meetings depended upon _the factory-girls_.
... “There were at length so many articles of a promiscuous character,
that it was thought they might form a pleasing variety in a little
book.... To tell the truth, we did not really believe that it would
ever come into being. We did not believe our articles would do to
print--that they were good enough to be put in a book. But there was
_one_ who thought otherwise.... Then a periodical was spoken of, and
it was even suggested that _we_ should edit it. _We_ the editor! The
idea was very awful. _We_ should as soon have thought of building a
meeting-house! We shrank so sensitively from the proposal that it was
not urged, and the projector of the work became its editor.
“We shall never forget our throb of pleasure when we first saw _The
Lowell Offering_ in a tangible form, with its bright yellow cover, nor
our flutterings of delight as we perused its pages. True, we had seen
or heard the articles before, but they seemed so much better in print!
They appeared to be as good as anybody’s writings. They sounded as if
written by people who never worked at all.
“_The Offering_ was well received by the public, or at least would
have been if people had not been so confused and perplexed and
mystified and unbelieving.
“The first number was an experiment, and a successful one. The
second, third, and fourth appeared at irregular intervals; and then
it was thought best that it should be permanently established.
Hitherto it had been sold singly, or given away, and there had been
no subscription list. With the fifth number commenced a new series,
different in form and materially improved in outward appearance.”
The new series was a monthly of thirty-two pages, large octavo, in
long primer, leaded, with embellishments of wood engravings, chiefly
of churches in Lowell, also pages of music, the whole put up in neat
printed covers.
Communications much amended in the process of training the writers
were rigidly excluded from print, and such articles only were
published as had been written by females employed in the mills. One
article only was afterwards challenged as a plagiarism. A few of the
contributions from the first needed only the usual corrections to fit
them for the press; the contributors, besides possessing rare native
talent, having had the advantages of a New England common-school
education.
Mostly the writers chose to appear anonymously, not subscribing even
their initials; and I am not at liberty to reveal their names, even
if I could remember and designate them all. I have, however, already
mentioned Miss Harriet Farley, and may add that she was a daughter
of the Rev. Stephen Farley, an aged Unitarian clergyman residing in
Amesbury, Mass., a man richer in faith and life than in dimes and
dollars. She left home, and worked steadily in the mills at Lowell,
that she might help a brother through college. I have no hesitation in
naming her as a sample of extraordinary genius. She greatly enriched
the Circle which was in my charge, and was foremost in every issue of
_The Offering_ for several years.
Miss Lydia S. Hall was another contributor whose productions aided
largely in the celebrity of _The Offering_, especially in the line of
poetry. “The Tomb of Washington,” “Lowell, a parody on Hohenlinden,”
“No,” and a number of other poetical articles of singular merit,
stamped this “Adelaide” as a remarkable writer.
Mrs. Betsey Chamberlain, a widow who worked in the mills for the
support and education of her two children, was a constant Circle
helper, and vitalized many pages of _The Offering_ by humorous
incidents and the wit of sound common sense.
Miss Harriot Curtis, who held a dashing pen, left the mills for a
season to attend to a sick friend in Troy. At the date of her return,
the contents of the second volume of _The Offering_ had already been
made up, whereupon, by my encouragement (suggestion, I believe)
she wrote a novelette entitled “Kate in Search of a Husband,” the
manuscript of which I sold in her behalf to J. Winchester, a New
York publisher, who issued large editions of it. A year or two later
she was associated with Miss Farley as editor and proprietor of _The
Offering_. Several “Chapters on the National Sciences” were written
by a factory-girl (Eliza J. Cate) in Manchester, N. H. She afterwards
wrote “Lights and Shadows of Factory Life,” also “Rural Life in New
England,” both of which I sold to Winchester in her behalf.
Miss Harriet Lees, S. G. B., E. E. T., H. J., A. B., and many others,
are pleasantly in my memory as cordial aids; these memoranda, as you
will perceive, reaching beyond the first four numbers, concerning
which you make special inquiry.
On the second page of the cover of Number 4, issued March 4, 1841,
an endeavor to establish _The Offering_ permanently was announced.
“Be the number large or small who are disposed to patronize the
undertaking, we have concluded to hazard the experiment for one year,”
the labor and responsibility being wholly my own.
If my ecclesiastical connections had been of the popular order,
there could have been no doubt of success; but I was well known as a
Universalist. Sectarian hostility, in that day, was of a sort which
would not be tolerated now; and I had to combat the falsehood that
_The Offering_ was a Universalist publication.
_The Operatives’ Magazine_ was issued as a rival, or competitor; and
only the superior talent of the contributors to the original work
kept it in the ascendant of repute and circulation. I am happy, too,
to remember that the most influential laymen in the city indorsed my
enterprise, as will appear by the following card:--
LOWELL, _March 7, 1841_.
The undersigned have seen the numbers of _The Lowell
Offering_ already issued. Believing the work calculated to
do good, and understanding that it is to be permanently
established by means of a subscription list, we take pleasure
in recommending it to the patronage of the public generally,
and to persons connected with the manufacturing establishment
especially.
Elisha Huntington. J. P. Jewett.
Samuel Lawrence. Samuel W. Stickney.
Elisha Bartlett. Daniel Mowe.
J. W. Warren. S. D. York.
Gilman Kimball. William Grey.
Robert Means. Moody Currier.
B. F. French. C. Appleton.
J. C. Dalton. John Nesmith.
John W. Graves. George Mansfield.
Homer Bartlett. George Brownell.
Charles L. Tilden. James G. Carney.
John Aiken. W. O. Bartlett.
Alexander Wright. A. D. Dearborne.
George Motley. Hiram Parker.
John Avery. Nathaniel Thurston.
William Spencer. Eliphalet Case.
William Livingston. J. G. Abbott.
J. W. Scribner. John Clark.
Those of your readers who have memories of the Lowell of thirty
years ago, will observe that the names of all (or nearly all) the
superintendents of the corporations are in this list, and that it
includes a liberal representation of other dignitaries in the city,
excepting only the clergy. One of these is indeed in the record;
but he shortly afterward wished to have his signature cancelled, for
the reason that he had placed it there without due consideration!
Whereupon Mr. Case, who passed the paper around, gave indefinite time
for consideration to all of the rest of the clergy, each having the
benefit of a doubt to begin with. I must not, however, fail to mention
that the Rev. Henry A. Miles, of the Unitarian Church, was steadfastly
a friend of _The Offering_ from first to last.
I have thus endeavored to answer your inquiries, and will add a few
incidents.
In January, 1842, Samuel Lawrence introduced me to Charles Dickens,
who was at that time on a tour of inspection in Lowell. In a brief
interview, I gave him assurance that all the articles in _The
Offering_ were written by the class known as factory-girls. I
afterward sent him a bound copy of the first volume, new series, which
he noticed at some length in “American Notes for General Circulation,”
the following being an extract:--
“They have got up among themselves a periodical called _The Lowell
Offering_ ... whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good
solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end.... Of the
merits of _The Lowell Offering_ as a literary production, I will only
observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the articles having
been written by these girls after the arduous labors of the day, that
it will compare advantageously with a great many English annuals.”
A volume entitled “Mind among the Spindles,” being a selection from
_The Offering_, was published in England under the auspices, I
believe, of Harriet Martineau. She, at all events, was the prompter
of a fine review in _The London Athenæum_. This was early in 1843.
The compliment was acknowledged by the present of an elegantly bound
copy of the first and second volumes of the new series, with the
inscription:--
“HARRIET MARTINEAU,
FROM
HARRIET FARLEY, HARRIOT CURTIS, AND
HARRIET LEES.”
The distinguished authoress said in reply: “It is welcome as a token
of kindness and for its own value, and above all as a proof of
sympathy between you and me, in regard to that great subject, the
true honor and interests of our sex.” She might truly have claimed,
in addition, not only that _The Offering_ was the first work written
entirely by factory-girls, but the first magazine or journal written
exclusively by women, in all the world.
My administration as editor and publisher ceased with the close of the
second volume, the numbers of which, as ‘copy’ was abundant, having
been pushed to completion in advance of regular monthly issues.
And now, after the lapse of more than thirty years of varied
experience, I send salutations of grace, mercy, and peace to all,
being yet in the flesh, who wished well to that undertaking, and
helped it, while I here record happy memories of the friends who have
passed behind the veil.
Truly yours,
ABEL C. THOMAS.
TACONY, PHILAD., _Dec. 29th, 1872_.
Although the magazine under its women editors was a continued success,
still, to Mr. Thomas, as its projector and first editor, must be given
the credit of bringing before the public these productions; and too
much honor cannot be awarded to him for believing in the capabilities
of the young people under his charge, and for utilizing the talent
which he found. But for his Improvement Circle _The Lowell Offering_
might never have been heard of; and its writers, if this impetus had
not been given to their talents, would never have thought themselves
capable of any success in this direction. To improve and cultivate the
mind was the injunction urged by this good man upon the working men and
women of his time.
The fact that Mr. Thomas was the grandson of a noted Quaker preacher
(Abel Thomas) probably accounts for his inheritance of the idea, first
promulgated in this country by that sect, that women have the right
and the ability to express their thoughts, both in speaking and in
writing; and he found in Lowell a good field for the application of
this principle.
Although a Universalist minister, he was very fond of the Quaker manner
of speech, and used the “thee” and “thou” to the end of his life. He
was an eloquent and convincing preacher, and consecrated his whole
life to the work of disseminating the doctrines of his denomination.
He married the daughter of Judge Strange Palmer, of Pottsville, Penn.,
and M. Louise Thomas is well known as taking a prominent part in many
social and philanthropic reforms; it is to her that I am indebted for
the privilege of quoting her husband’s letter.
Mr. Thomas died Sept. 28, 1880; but he had lived to rejoice in the
result of his enterprise, though he had little thought, perhaps, of
what would be the outcome of his efforts to encourage the young people
of his church and community. He was a model publisher, since, as two at
least of his writers testify, he shared the pecuniary profits of his
magazine with its contributors.