Harriet Hanson was a Lowell mill girl for over ten years; her mother ran one of the boarding houses in the area. Harriet remained in the Boston region after marrying William Robinson, journalist and abolitionist. The Robinsons became friends with neighbors Thoreau and Emerson although Harriet felt that the region around Walden Pond was very boring and too quiet for her.

The biography attempts to put Harriet in the reformist mileau, although I got the idea that Harriet was only interested for what it could do for her reputation. Each incident ended in Harriet becoming upset because she wasn't given the recognition she felt she deserved, some slight or some snub. I find it interesting that although I have been reading about the suffrage movement and its leaders for decades, this is the first time I read of Harriet's "pivotal" involvement.

The biography is not written strictly chronologically, but rather with chapters around themes such as "Club work" or "Housekeeping". I found this very distracting. The author goes back and forth over time periods trying to make this work and it is confusing. It also doesn't work because Bushman never gets to the meat of Harriet's life. The information seems so superficial and I never had the sense that Harriet's life had purpose, more than seeing her name in print.

I am glad I read this book because it introduced me to someone I had never known but it is not one I would recommend as representative of suffragists or reformers of the mid-19th century. ( )