Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson (08 Feb 1825 – 22 Dec 1911 | Boston MA – Malden MA) poet, author, mill girl, bobbin doffer, social activist, suffragist leader.

The sonnet sonnetized: The sonnet is mechanical in part, and part ideal. The cube root

of song, conceive your thought, then build the verse along in true Petrarchan style. With

rhythmic art to all the fourteen lines a grace impart. Ten-syllable the verse, the rhymes

be strong; within the octave only two belong, and in the sestet three. And here the heart

of all the sonnet lies. Con-centred fast, your thought, developed through each separate line,

here breaks the bounds and struggles to be free, through hampering bars of rhyme; and

when the last is reached, away it soars — a breath divine– in charmèd flight towards

immortality. One of the most curious phases in the life of New England, is its sudden

intellectual blossoming, seeds of which came as if blown from far-off lands. Some found

a resting-place in this little corner, where gathered daughters who felt  impelled to write.

Robinson, Harriet Jane Hanson. Loom and Spindle, or, Life among the Early Mill Girls, with a Sketch of ‘The Lowell Offering’ and Some of Its Contributors. New York: T. Y. Crowell, c1898. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/women-working-1800-1930/catalog/45-990022084580203941