Shattuck, Harriette R. (Harriette Robinson), 1850-1937

Harriette Lucy Robinson Shattuck, a Massachusetts suffragist, was active in the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the General Federation of Women's Clubs.

Harriette R. Shattuck. Teacher of parliamentary law, author and journalist, Mrs. Shattuck was born in Lowell, Mass., the daughter of William Stevens Robinson (1818-1876), a journalist and author. She attended Dr. Hendy's School in Boston and married Sidney Duane Shattuck on June 11, 1878. Her first book was a dramatization of Dicken's Our Mutual FriendI (1870), then followed children's books such as The Story of Dante's Divine Comedy and Little Folks East and West. She also wrote Woman's Manual of Parliamentary Law (1891), Shattuck's Advanced Rules of Parliament (1898), and a memoir of her father. Mrs. Shattuck was a contributor to the Boston Transcript and Poughkeepsie Evening Standard and a leader for women's suffrage; she lived in Malden, Mass.

Michael O'Donnell. New England autograph collector.

Harriet Jane Hanson was born February 8, 1825 in Boston, the only daughter of William Hanson and Harriet (Browne) Hanson. After her father's death in 1831 Harriet moved with her mother to the mill town of Lowell, Mass. and at the age of ten began working in one of the mills. It was during this time that she began writing; some of this early work was published in the Lowell Offering. In 1848 she married William Stevens Robinson, an anti-slavery newspaper editor who used the pen-name "Warrington." Besides helping her husband with his anti-slavery and reform activities, Harriet Robinson became active in the advancement of women's rights. In 1881 she wrote a history of Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement and openly affiliated with Susan B. Anthony's National Woman Suffrage Association. She also continued to write about factory labor and mill girls ("Early Factory Labor in New England," 1889; Loom and Spindle, 1898) and was an enthusiastic promoter of women's clubs. She died at her home in Malden, Mass. December 22, 1911.

Harriette Robinson Shattuck, the first of William and Harriet (Hanson) Robinson's four children, was born December 4, 1850. Beginning in the 1860's she was active in the woman suffrage movement, later helping her mother organize the National Woman Suffrage Association of Massachusetts. In 1878 she married Sidney Doane Shattuck. Mrs. Shattuck also shared her mother's interest in women's clubs: in 1878 she helped found the "Old and New," a woman's club of Malden, Mass., and she was active in the formation of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1890. After her mother's death Mrs. Shattuck moved with her husband to Poughkeepsie, N. Y., later returning to Malden. She died March 24, 1937.

The Harriet Robinson papers include a large body of her family correspondence with her children, her husband, and other family members. Other correspondents include: Lucy Larcom, several Lowell mill girls, and suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone. Annual diaries, dating from 1852 to 1908 with some gaps, and scrapbooks number over seventy volumes and contain early writings (published and unpublished), Lowell mill girl material, and newsclippings dealing primarily with women and suffrage. Seven of the scrapbooks were kept by Harriette Robinson Shattuck, except that the first of them was begun for her by her mother.