Letter 1:

Lowell Jan. 1st 1846

Mrs. Martin,

Dear Madam, We received your
kind communication with much pleasure
and as I am President and have also acted
as Corresponding Secy - it has devolved upon me
to make a reply and I regret my inability to
do justice to myself, or your communication.
It is hardly possible for you to imagine the
encouragement and hope with which your
kind letter has inspired us, it is like an
oasis in the desert of a weary journey.
It is but one year since we commenced our
association when five of our number met
in "Anti-Slavery Hall" and made a beginning,
and pledge our mutual assistance to
each other, and though our beginning was
very small - by perseverance and united
effort, we now number six hundred.
It may not be uninteresting to you; to learn
the secret of our success.
We labored long and hard to procure a
press through which to spread our proposed
remedies, for the ills, which society have
forced upon us. Thanks Heaven! We
have at length succeeded, and the laborers
of New England have taken hold of the subject
and our paper promises to meet the
expense of publication. But the "Factory
Tracts" it is for those to decide whether they
shall be published, who are not willing
to see our sex, made into living machines
to do the bidding of incorporated aristocrats
and reduced to a sum for their services hardly
sufficient to keep soul and body together.
I commenced them without any assistance
from any one and "they" have not yet
met half the expense of printing. I shall
publish No. 3 and then if I do not receive
aid sufficient to warrant the continuation
of them I shall be obliged to discontinue
them for the present at least. I have
not taken any subscriptions for them
but sell them in copies. I would
not abandon an enterprise like the publica-
tion of a series of tracts, under other circumstan-
ces, but I have an aged father and mother
to support, and with the mean and paltry
sum allowed to females, who work for the
rich, you may be assured that I am
obliged to make the most of my time
and means I possibly can. I have sent
you a copy of the paper published by us,
and also tract No. 2 which I trust you
have received 'ere this, and as you have
kindly offered to lend your assistance
in behalf of womans rights, by giving
circulation to our paper, or selling tracts
for us or in any way spreading abroad
the truths which these contain you will
do something to aid suffering humanity.
If you think you can sell a few copies
I will forward them, if you will signify
it. I shall see Mr. Brisbane in two weeks
and will attend to your request and think
it would be likely to meet the approbation
of our Association, if it savors of the spirit
of your letter. I have a personal acquaintance
with Mr. Brisbane, and regard him as a real
laborer in the cause of human improvement.
I am very sorry to see the undue kindness
of sothern abolitionists towards our brethen
of the south -not that I am pro-slavery
No! God forbid, but because they have
boxed up their sympathy and hold
themselves ready to send it across the
Atlantic or Louisiana at any time
when it shall be called for. Alas!! How
it is at home? How are they developed
here? Why by compelling the females of
New England to labor thirteen hours per day in
rooms heated by hot air furnaces and sleep
on the average from six to ten in a room.
These very men are now carrying into
the rooms of these operatives protests against
the annexation of Texas, and insulting
them by asking them for their names
Am I in error when I say that these
men are mere partisans and not lovers
of human rights.

 

[Address written across this section]

Mrs. A. L. P. Martin
Duppurford (near Marietta)
Washington County, Ohio

 

Letter 2:

Lowell March 13, 1846

Mrs. Martin
Dear Madam, I wrote
you some few weeks since and as I had
not received a reply I thought my letter
might be miss sent and I would write
again. You wrote me some two months
ago that you would interest yourself
sufficiently to become our agent to
procure means to purchase a press if we
would commence such an enterprise
we have bought a press and fixtures at
an expense of $500 and paid $100 on
the delivery of the property. Our next
payment becomes due on the first of June,
and we hope through the faithful
exertions of the friends the enterprise
to be able to meet it. We have rented
our press $15 per year and shall be
obliged to take the rent to meet our
engagements. We shall publish for
circulation all that we rent our press
for after we have paid first, and
if the manuscript of which you
wrote me should not be previously
published we should like it.

I have not seen Mr. Brisbane since you
wrote us, but he has engaged to be here
the first of June when I will speak to
him about your manuscript considera-
ble interest is manifested in the
subject of woman's rights and our
association have procured a course of
lectures on that subject. We are indeed
indebted to you for the new Goal of
the friends of rights your letter gave
them a new impulse.
I trust you will write. To us and
offer us words of encouragement and
hope. Yours in the cause of
the progress of our race.

Sarah G. Bagley
Lowell county of Middlesex Mass
Massachusetts

P.S. I have sent you several papers and tracts
and should pay the expense of them and this,
could I know whether you received them.

Letter 3:

Springfield, Mass March 13, 1848

Mrs. Martin

Dear Madam

You will pardon my long, delay when I tell you that your arrived in Lowell during my absence from the City to attend the sick bed of our aged father, who I am happy to inform you has, recovered. I would offer an apology for my long silence but be assured that you have given no offence in writing but I have always felt a great interest in your communications. I feel that I am deeply indebted for your generosity and hope you will let me hear often from you. My duties have been very pressing of late, and the business of my office has almost made me ungrateful to my correspondents. I left Lowell about three months since and am in charge of the magnetic telegraph in this place during the present year. I have an aged father and mother to support, to whom my duty is first and greatest. I regret to say to you, that the "Voice of Industry" is quite conservative and must be with its present conductor. The present editor thinks that a middle ground or half and half in our opinions is good policy. He thinks that truth ought to be spoken in such honeyed words that if it hits any one, it shall not affect him unfavorably. He found fault with my communications and I would not remain on the committee of publication with him for editor. He does not want a female department it would conflict with the opinions of the mushroom aristocracy that he seeks to favor, and beside it would not be dignified.

I am sick at heart when I look into the social world and see woman so willingly made a dupe to the beastly selfishness of man. A mere donkey for his use and no right, even to her own person. I most fervently thank Heaven that I have never introduced into existence a being to suffer the privations that I have endured. For instance ­ the man who tended this office before me had four hundred dollars per year I three and still the business has been on the increased all the time. But I am a woman and it is not worth so much to a company for me to write a letter as it would be for a man. Well, the world is quite satisfied with the present arrangement, and we can only protest against such a state of things, and strive to arouse the minds of others to their state of servitude and dependence on the caprice and whims and selfishness of man. I feel as though my labors for the public good are nearly ended. It takes time and that is my only means. It takes money that I can ill afford. My father has had two severe fevers the last year. I am their only dependence and it has called for every shilling I could earn more than my absolute wants. Still I shall toil on with the little in my power until my task on earth is ended which will soon be. Pardon me dear Mrs. Martin for writing so sadly. I feel so, and am only giving expression to my depressed soul.

To labor year after year and have only an ungrateful return from those you are striving to bless, is truly discouragy. But it is the way of the world, and to think a thought that has not been in stereotype for forty years is so ultra that it can be hardly countenanced in refined society. Let us trust on and try to leave a little seed on earth that shall bear fruit when we shall pass away. I hope to see Father Owen this spring I am anxious to have some kind word of encouragement from him. Do write some kind word to me on the reception of this, it will be gratefully received. I will not neglect to answer you so long again. I had no time today but sit up an hour later to say to you, that you are kindly remembered.

Accept my best wishes and let me hear from you often.

yours Sarah G. Bagley

Source: Martin Family Papers and Campus Martius Museum Records, Lilly Martin Spencer Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.