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Distributed for University Press of New England

Going to Boston

Harriet Robinson’s Journey to New Womanhood

Distributed for University Press of New England

Going to Boston

Harriet Robinson’s Journey to New Womanhood

As a poet, author, and keen observer of life in 1870s Boston, Harriet Robinson played an essential—if occasionally underappreciated—role in the women’s suffrage movement during Boston’s golden age. Robinson flourished after leaving behind her humble roots in the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, deciding to spend a year in Boston discovering the culture and politics of America’s Athens. An honest, bright, and perceptive witness, she meets with Emerson and Julia Ward Howe, with whom she organizes the New England Women’s Club, and drinks deeply of the city’s artistic and cultural offerings. Noted historian Claudia L. Bushman proves a wonderful guide as she weaves together Robinson’s journal entries, her own learned commentary, and selections from other nineteenth-century writers to reveal the impact of the industrial revolution and the rise of women’s suffrage as seen through the experience of one articulate, engaged participant. Going to Boston will appeal to readers interested in both the history of Boston and the history of American progress itself.

248 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2017

Biography and Letters


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Table of Contents

Preface • Harriet’s World: Women After the Civil War • Winter: Boston: The Club, the Theater, the Statehouse • Spring: Malden: The Family, the House, the Garden • Summer: Vacations and War • Autumn: Boston: Politics and the Suffrage Bazar • Appendix 1: Books Read by the Robinsons in 1870 • Appendix 2: Additional Stories • Notes • Index

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