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The silent partner
An early realistic portrayal of industrial life and the social injustice of the time in the U.S. The lives of two women, one an owner of the mill and the other a worker, as they both reject marriage proposals in favor of their right to work.
308 pages, Paperback
Published December 20, 2005
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About the author
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
137 books22 followersElizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, born Mary Gray Phelps, was an American author.
She was born at Andover, Massachusetts. In most of her writings she used her mother's name "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps" as a pseudonym, both before and after her marriage in 1888 to Herbert Dickinson Ward, a journalist seventeen years younger. She also used the pseudonym Mary Adams. Her father Austin Phelps was pastor of the Pine Street Congregational Church until 1848, when he accepted a position as the Chair of Rhetoric at Andover Theological Seminary and moved the family to Boston.
Ward wrote three Spiritualist novels, The Gates Ajar, Between the Gates and Beyond the Gates, and a novella about animal rights, Loveliness. While writing other popular stories, she was also a great advocate, by lecturing and otherwise, for social reform, temperance, and the emancipation of women. She was also involved in clothing reform for women, urging them to burn their corsets in 1874.
Ward's mother, Elizabeth (Wooster) Stuart Phelps, (August 13, 1815—November 30, 1852) wrote the Kitty Brown books under the pen name H. Trusta.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her husband co-authored two Biblical romances in 1890 and 1891. Her autobiography, Chapters from a Life was published in 1896 after being serialized in McClure's. She also wrote a large number of essays for Harper's
Phelps continued to write short stories and novels into the twentieth century. One work, Trixy (1904), dealt with another cause she supported, anti-vivisection (a topic on which she also addressed the Massachusetts State Legislature). Her last work, Comrades (1911), was published posthumously. Phelps died January 28, 1911, in Newton Center, Massachusetts.
She was born at Andover, Massachusetts. In most of her writings she used her mother's name "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps" as a pseudonym, both before and after her marriage in 1888 to Herbert Dickinson Ward, a journalist seventeen years younger. She also used the pseudonym Mary Adams. Her father Austin Phelps was pastor of the Pine Street Congregational Church until 1848, when he accepted a position as the Chair of Rhetoric at Andover Theological Seminary and moved the family to Boston.
Ward wrote three Spiritualist novels, The Gates Ajar, Between the Gates and Beyond the Gates, and a novella about animal rights, Loveliness. While writing other popular stories, she was also a great advocate, by lecturing and otherwise, for social reform, temperance, and the emancipation of women. She was also involved in clothing reform for women, urging them to burn their corsets in 1874.
Ward's mother, Elizabeth (Wooster) Stuart Phelps, (August 13, 1815—November 30, 1852) wrote the Kitty Brown books under the pen name H. Trusta.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her husband co-authored two Biblical romances in 1890 and 1891. Her autobiography, Chapters from a Life was published in 1896 after being serialized in McClure's. She also wrote a large number of essays for Harper's
Phelps continued to write short stories and novels into the twentieth century. One work, Trixy (1904), dealt with another cause she supported, anti-vivisection (a topic on which she also addressed the Massachusetts State Legislature). Her last work, Comrades (1911), was published posthumously. Phelps died January 28, 1911, in Newton Center, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 6, 2025
“‘Sometimes,’ added Sip, with a working of the face, ‘it comes over me as if I was like a — a patchwork bed-quilt. I’d like to have been made out of one piece of cloth. It seems as if your kind of folks got made first, and we down here was put together out of what was left.’”
3.75 stars
this was a devastating, beautiful, empowering read. it’s unfortunate this book isn’t circulated in print much anymore, and it makes me wonder how many other great pieces of literature have been lost.
“there is something about the relations of rich and poor, of master and man, with which the state of the market has nothing whatever to do. there is something, — a claim, a duty, a puzzle, it is all too new to me to know what to call it, — but I am convinced bed that there is something at which a man cannot lie and twirl his mustache forever”
3.75 stars
this was a devastating, beautiful, empowering read. it’s unfortunate this book isn’t circulated in print much anymore, and it makes me wonder how many other great pieces of literature have been lost.
“there is something about the relations of rich and poor, of master and man, with which the state of the market has nothing whatever to do. there is something, — a claim, a duty, a puzzle, it is all too new to me to know what to call it, — but I am convinced bed that there is something at which a man cannot lie and twirl his mustache forever”
Displaying 1 of 1 review