I remember Lizzie Turner, when a young girl, as an intellectual factor among the contributors to The Offering, and also as a prominent worker in the Universalist Church. She was sprightly, vivacious, and universally popular. She was tall and graceful, had dark-brown hair, and star-bright eyes, which now, although she is a grandmother, have lost very little of their lustre, nor is her kindly and smiling expression diminished.
To illustrate the simplicity of dress of the mill-girls, before spoken of, and also to show how little thought they had of rivalling or of outdoing each other in matter of adornment, I venture to give the following as related to me by Mrs. Sawyer:—
“There were ten of us girl friends (the majority of whom wrote for The Offering) who one summer had each a purple satin cape for street wear. These were trimmed with black lace; and this, with a small-figured, light Merrimack print (or calico), constituted our walking costume. We had nothing better for Sunday wear; and as we walked along, sometimes all together, I am sure that it never occurred to one of us that we were not as well-dressed as any lady we met.”
During the Civil War, Mrs. Sawyer was one of the most efficient among the many women in Chicago who worked for the soldiers and the country, and she has devoted much time and thought to the woman suffrage cause. She is a voter and an active member of The Illinois Woman’s Alliance, of the Illinois Woman’s Press Association, and of the Chicago Woman’s Club.
Her sister, Abby D. Turner, was also one of the earliest writers for The Offering; her first contribution was written when she was sixteen years of age. She was married while in her teens to Mr. John Caryl. She has been a widow many years, and has been entirely devoted to her children and grandchildren.
CLEMENTINE AVERILL.
Among the “girl graduates” from the New England cotton-mill, there is one who, although not a writer for The Offering, yet deserves to be included in a book like this. This is Clementine Averill.
There was often doubt thrown upon the accounts of the superior mental, moral, and physical condition of the Lowell factory-girl; and at one time (in 1850) a Senator of the United States, named Clemens (of Alabama, I think), stated in Congress that “the Southern slaves were better off than the Northern operatives.” Miss Averill, then at work in the Lowell mill, answered this person’s allegation in a letter to the New York Tribune, as follows:—
LETTER FROM A FACTORY-GIRL TO SENATOR CLEMENS.
Communicated for The Weekly Tribune.