This collection consists, with a few exceptions, of the letters of Mary Jackson Lee to her daughter, Mary Cabot Lee Higginson, and Mary Higginson's letters to her husband, George. After their marriage, the young Higginsons moved to New York City where George was a commission merchant in partnership with his cousin Stephen Higginson. Most of the letters were written between 1832 and 1840 either in Boston, Waltham, or New York. In 1837, George's business failed and the family returned to Boston. The Lees, Jacksons, Cabots, and Higginsons were members of an elite group which held sway in Massachusetts because of their prominence in commerce, law, medicine, and with the establishment of the textile mills, in manufacture. The families intermarried and proliferated forming a group once referred to as "the codfish aristocracy." It was the activities of this extended family, as well as those of her immediate family--her father and four younger siblings--where were reported upon to Mary Higginson by her mother. In addition to conveying news of home, Mary Lee's letters were intended to nurture the bond between mother and daughter despite the miles between them. And always there was advice for the new homemaker, wife, and mother: how to rub her furniture; how to handle her domestics; how to deal with ill health; the duties of "calling," etc. Particularly, Mrs. Lee is anxious that Mary find proper domestic help, especially the services of a competent wet nurse when the need arises, which it does regularly. The selection and retention of a wet nurse is an important theme in the letters, as well as the whole subject of nursing. In May 1834, Mary Higginson in Boston writes to her husband that one prospective nurse said she could not go to New York as she was thirty-three and had eight children--"we hardly cared to take her as she looked worn out." Of nursing, Mary Lee writes, "it is worth _any_ sacrifice to make your children vigorous." [12 August 1834]. In this, as in all medical matters, Mrs. Lee calls upon her brother, Dr. James Jackson, for advice. The illness and unexpected death of his son, James Jackson, Jr., strikes a poignant note in the correspondence. These letters from mother to daughter are affectionate in tone, gently didactic, and yet state unequivocally her ideas of what a wife's role should be. Even though young George has the chicken pox, baby Henry has been exposed to it, and Mary expects her third child momentarily, Mary Lee writes, "I hold you know that a woman is bound to make all things smooth and pleasant for her husband, when he returns home weary and oppressed with the more arduous duties of life." [22 June 1836]. Mary Lee's own life was a full one. She regrets that she has little time for reading and once wrote that her concern with domestic matters "stupify the little mind I have and unfit me for any intellectual effort." Even writing to Mary could be difficult with the children "chasing each other and alternately singing, scolding and screaming." She despairs of being able to impart "tranquil cheerfulness" to her children. [2 January 1834]. Mary Higginson's letters to her husband reveal a young woman who seems to have accepted her mother's advice. She is loving, deferential, and eager to be a good wife and mother but sometimes in her own estimation falls short. She expresses unhappiness at being separated from George and looks forward eagerly to their reunions. She includes news of their friends and relations and anecdotes about their children. Quite often she admits to fatigue, or to suffering eye strain or toothache. She could not have been physically robust, as she died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-eight. In his book, Bliss Perry writes of Mary, "All the allusions in the family correspondence confirm the lines of that picture of the delicate, worn young mother, hater of injustice, lover of books, lover of music, lover and giver of life."
