SARA JANE "GRACE GREENWOOD" LIPPINCOTT - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 09/06/1888 - HFSID 89920

SARA JANE "GRACE GREENWOOD" LIPPINCOTT
The author and women's rights activist signs this handwritten letter in which she explains that she cannot accept an invitation due to a "catarrhal bronchial attack"
Autograph letter signed: "Grace Greenwood" in black ink. 2p, 5x8. New York, September 6, 1888. Written to "Dear Mrs. Holloway", in full: "I am sorry to say I cannot accept your kind invitation. I am not at all well- indeed am very ill, suffering from a severe catarrhal bronchial attack- Something of this kind I have always to look for at this season of the year- if I was myself, I should like to go on the little "bender" you propose- would like to see more of you and to meet [illegible] Dickenson once more- as it is, you must hold me excused. I will say a few [illegible] words for you soon. Just now I seem to have sneezed my brain dry. Sincerely yours." Postscript: "Of course, I am a suffragist. What do you take me for!" Sara Jane Lippincott (1823-1904), better known by the pseudonym Grace Greenwood, was an American author, lecturer, and social activist. She attended Greenwood school, where she may have taken her pseudonym. Greenwood's earliest writing was poetry and children's stories. In 1844, she drew national attention with a poem published in the New York Mirror, at the age of 21. Her work was published frequently in the widely read magazines of the day. Her poetry received significant critical attention. She became a prominent member of the literary society of New York along with Anne Lynch Botta, Edgar Allan Poe, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Horace Greeley, among others. Greenwood was also a highly respected journalist and consistently argued for the reform of women's roles and rights. In 1852, she went to Europe on an assignment for the New York Times and became the first woman reporter on the Times payroll. She joined the National Era, a weekly abolitionist newspaper, and copy edited the serialized original version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin as well as writing columns, travel letters, and articles. Later, Greenwood and her husband created The Little Pilgrim, a children's magazine. Lightly toned. Corners rounded. Normal mailing folds. Creases at upper left corner. Tears along folds near top and bottom left edge and middle right. Pencil erasure under postscript. Otherwise, fine condition.