Harriot F. Curtis
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Harriot F. Curtis (16 September 1813 - 29 September 1889) was an American writer and editor best known as a writer for and co-editor of the Lowell Offering.
Harriot F. Curtis was born on September 16, 1813 in Kelleyvale, Vermont (renamed Lowell, Vermont). Her full name was Harriot Flora Aurora Louisa Maria.[1] As a young woman, she moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where she worked in the mills. She appears on the payroll of the Lawrence Manufacturing Company as a harness knitter from 1833 through 1838.[1]
Professional Life
At the same time that she worked in Lowell's mills she was writing for various publications, including the Lowell Offering, a monthly literary periodical published from 1840 to 1845 made up of writing by women who worked in Lowell's mills. With fellow mill worker Harriet Farley, Curtis became co-editor of the Offering in 1842.[1]
Fellow mill worker Harriet Hanson Robinson wrote about Curtis in her memoir, Loom & Spindle (1898), saying: "I first knew Miss Curtis in about 1844, when she and Miss Farley lived in what was then Dracut...The house was a sort of literary center to those who had become interested in the Lowell Offering and its writers...many who came...near and far...meet the 'girls'.[2]
In addition to her editorship of the Offering, she wrote and published several novels, including Kate in Search Of a Husband (1843) and Jessie's Flirtations (1846) and she collected many of her shorter pieces published elsewhere in S.S.S. Philosophy (1847). [3]
She also served as editor of Lowell's Vox Populi (a weekly newspaper) from 1854-55.[1]
