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Mary Lowell Putnam

Boston, 1810 - 1898, Boston

Biographyhttp://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n82075449/ I.S. 1/3/2018

PUTNAM Mary Traill Spence Lowell author was born in Boston Mass Dec 3 1810 daughter of Rev Charles Lowell and the elder sister of James Russell Lowell Her father was settled over a Unitarian church in Boston from 1806 until his death in 1801 Her mother a sister of Com Robert Traill Spence was a highly gifted woman whose poetic imagination was bequeathed to her children From her the daughter also inherited an unusual aptitude for acquiring languages being able to converse readily in French Italian German Polish Swedish and Hungarian She was familiar with twenty modern dialects beside the Greek Latin Hebrew Persian and Arabic languages Her controversy with Francis Bowen editor of the North American Review respecting the war in Hungary first brought her name prominently before the public Mr Bowen attacked the Hungarian revolutionists whom she upheld His articles on this subject are said to have caused his rejection as professor of history at Harvard Mrs Putnam made the first translation from the Swedish into English of Frederika Bremer's novel The Handmaid 1844 The translation by Mary Howitt in 1842 was made from the German Mrs Putnam contributed to the North American Review articles on Polish and Hungarian literature 1848 50 and to the Christian Examiner on the history of Hungary 1850 51 and published anonymously Records of an Obscure Man 1801 The Tragedy of Errors 1862 and The Tragedy of Success 1H02 These three volumes of which the last two are dramatic poems describe the condition of the southern states under slavery She also wrote Fifteen Days 1800 and a Memoir of Charles Lowell 1885 She was married in 1832 to Samuel R Putnam of Boston where she resided except for several years spent abroad Her son William Lowell Putnam b July 9 1H40 d Oct 21 1801 was educated in France and at Harvard where he studied mental science and law He entered the 20th Massachusetts regiment in 1801 and was mortally wounded at the battle of Ball's Bluff while leading his battalion to the rescue of a wounded soldier At the hospital tent he refused the services of the surgeon bidding him go to those who could be helped since his own life could not be saved His mother published a Memoir of William Lowell Putnam in 1862 She died in Boston Mass in June 1898
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography p.328
https://books.google.com/books?id=gawYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA328#v=onepage&q&f=false I.S. 1/3/2018

Mary Lowell Putnam's pseudonym was Edward Colvil. See alternative names listing on WorldCat Identities page: http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n82075449/ accessed 4/19/19 MP

See short bio at Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/putnam-mary-traill-spence-lowell accessed 4/4/19 MP

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/7/24

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