Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

Born in Boston on August 15, 1787, she grew up in the prominent Cabot family and became active in the city’s intellectual and religious life. She wrote prose and poetry for newspapers and magazines, and later became known as an author and editor whose work reached both adults and young readers.

In 1828, she married Charles Follen, a German-born scholar and reformer. After his death in 1840, she wrote a memoir of his life. Across these years she published a wide range of books, including children’s works, poems, and devotional writing, building a reputation for clear, earnest, accessible prose.

She was also a committed abolitionist. Alongside her literary work, she spoke and wrote against slavery, including appeals aimed at women in the free states. She died in Brookline, Massachusetts, on January 26, 1860, remembered for joining literature, moral education, and reform in a distinctly 19th-century American voice.