SARA JANE "GRACE GREENWOOD" LIPPINCOTT - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED - HFSID 89921

SARA JANE "GRACE GREENWOOD" LIPPINCOTT
The author and activist for abolition and women's rights signs this letter asking the recipient to borrow oil because her kitchen cabinet failed to inform her she was out
Autograph letter signed: "Grace Greenwood" in black ink. 4½x7 letter affixed to 8½x11 sheet. Written to "Dear Mrs. Hall" in full: "We are in a dilemma, having just found out- (poor foolish virgins!) that we have no oil in the house. Will you lend us a little for this evening, and don't think too ill of our housekeeping. The fault lay in the 'kitchen cabinet' for not informing us. Affectionately yours". 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. Creased where affixed to larger backing sheet. Normal mailing folds. 2x3 photograph affixed to upper left corner. Ink and pencil notes (unknown hand) in upper right margin. Otherwise, fine condition.