Papers of Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson and Harriette Lucy Robinson Shattuck, 1833-1937

Harriet Jane Hanson was born February 8, 1825, in Boston, Massachusetts, the only daughter of William Hanson and Harriet (Browne) Hanson. After her father's death in 1831 Harriet moved with her mother to the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, and at the age of ten began working in one of the mills. It was during this time that she began writing; some of this early work was published in the Lowell Offering. In 1848 she married William Stevens Robinson, an anti-slavery newspaper editor who used the pen-name "Warrington." Besides helping her husband with his anti-slavery and reform activities, Harriet Robinson became active in the advancement of women's rights. In 1881 she wrote a history of Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement and openly affiliated with Susan B. Anthony's National Woman Suffrage Association. She also continued to write about factory labor and mill girls ("Early Factory Labor in New England," 1889; Loom and Spindle, 1898) and was an enthusiastic promoter of women's clubs. She died at her home in Malden, Massachusetts, December 22, 1911.

Harriette Robinson Shattuck, the first of William and Harriet (Hanson) Robinson's four children, was born December 4, 1850. Beginning in the 1860s, she was active in the woman suffrage movement, later helping her mother organize the National Woman Suffrage Association of Massachusetts. In 1878 she married Sidney Doane Shattuck. Mrs. Shattuck also shared her mother's interest in women's clubs: in 1878 she helped found the "Old and New," a woman's club of Malden, Massachusetts, and she was active in the formation of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1890. After her mother's death Mrs. Shattuck moved with her husband to Poughkeepsie, New York, later returning to Malden. She died March 24, 1937.