Putnam, Mary (Traill Spence) Lowell

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PUTNAM, Mary (Traill Spence) Lowell

Born 3 December 1810, Boston, Massachusetts; died 1898, Boston, Massachusetts

Also wrote under: M. L. P.

Daughter of Charles and Harriet Spence Lowell; married Samuel R. Putnam

Mary Lowell Putnam's mother imbued her Christian rectitude and love of learning in her children. Her father, a minister at West Church in Boston, was descended from Judge John Lowell, who was a member of the Continental Congress and a district and circuit court judge. Judge Lowell's benevolence toward black people, the family's proud New England heritage, and a fervent Christian faith are all reflected in Putnam's work.

Putnam is noted for translating Fredrika Bremer's play, The Bondmaid, from Swedish (1844). Putnam's fluency in French, coupled with her voracious reading, allowed Putnam to take on the editor of the North American Review, Francis Bowen, who had sharply criticized Kossuth and the Magyars after their revolution. In two essays in the Christian Examiner Putnam shreds Bowen's articles, taking them line by line and proving their inaccuracy and bad logic.

Putnam's four chief works, all published anonymously and centered on the issue of slavery, are told from the vantage point of Edward Colvil, a New England farmer-poet transplanted to the South. Record of an Obscure Man (1861) and Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's Journal (1866) are filled with exposition and speculation about black history and alternatives to slavery. Tragedy of Errors (1862) and Tragedy of Success (1862), both plays, embody some of Putnam's theories about the beauty of black music, the eloquence of black preaching, and black people's special capacity for loyalty and revenge.

Record of an Obscure Man is narrated by a friend of Colvil's who listened to his discussion of African history and theories about slavery and, after Colvil's death, arranged for publication of his two verse plays, Tragedy of Errors and its sequel, Tragedy of Success. Written "in the dramatic form, but not intended for the stage," the plays form the core of Putnam's series.

Their plot is overly complicated. The intrigue of a jilted mulatto woman, Dorcas, catapults a young white woman, Hecate, into slavery. She has a child by her plantation owner, Stanley, switches her baby with that of his wife, and watches her illegitimate daughter, Helen, grow up as a generous, highly intelligent, free woman who endears herself with the slaves and longs to accomplish some great work but feels hampered by a weak-spirited husband. After the baby-switching comes to light, Helen takes her place as a slave, but escapes with her son when her husband tells her he wants to keep her as his mistress. Just as he sees the light (encouraged by proof that Helen is white), Helen is captured and dies in jail from loss of hope (but not faith).

In contrast to Putnam's very readable prose, the verse in the plays is only occasionally strong; but a few of the scenes have convincing dialogues: in one, Dorcas successfully confronts her remorseful accomplice, a slave trader, by skillfully reminding him of his self-doubts and mixed motivations. In another, Helen powerfully decries the severe limitations of woman's freedom to her sister-in-law Alice: "Restrained and cramped / In all her outward acts, she cannot know / The joys of self-possession,— man's great bliss; / She only claims those of renunciation." Despite her limits, however, woman is "man's second conscience," and must speak "the word God printed on her soul."

Fifteen Days is the most unified work in the series. The journal starts on Good Friday, 1844, and describes Colvil's meeting with a charismatic figure, Harry Dudley, a young visiting botanist from Massachusetts who tries to buy a slave so he can free him. Fifteen Days balances the joy of deepening friendship between Colvil and Dudley against the sense of looming tragedy.Colvil seems excessively anxious to live up to Dudley's expectation, but his anxiety is interestingly confirmed when Dudley is killed at the end, ironically by a good friend who was also the slave's former owner.

The central victims in Putnam's tragic series are all young, perceptive, and white, but her exposition of African history shows a sensitivity to the intelligence and culture of black people. Putnam's writings on Hungary show her capable of imagining herself in other people's shoes. Although her characters are scarce on flesh and blood, their sensibility is frequently compelling.

Other Works:

The North American Review on Hungary (reprinted from the Christian Examiner, Nov. 1850, March 1851). [Memorial of William] Lowell Putnam (1863). Guépin of Nantes: A French Republican (1874). Memoir of Rev. Charles Lowell, D.D. (1885).

Bibliography:

Adelman, J. Famous Women (1926). Dorland, W. A. N., The Sum of Feminine Achievement (1917). Homes of American Authors (1857).

Reference works:

American Authors, 1795-1895: A Bibliography (1897). American Fiction, 1851-1875. Wright (1965). A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors (1872). A Dictionary of American Authors (1897). DAB. Index to Women of the World, from Ancient to Modern Times: Biographies and Portraits (1970). Women 's Record (1870).