#7 - SOMERVILLE SUFFRAGE LEAGUE HEADQUARTERS

Martha Perry Lowe (1829-1902) was an American writer of poetry and prose, as well as a social activist and organizer. She supported women's rights, education, Unitarian organizations, and Native American rights and wrote for the Somerville Unitarian Review. In 1857, she married the Rev. Charles Lowe, who died in 1874, and at the time of his death was a member of the Somerville school committee. In 1871, when the family went to Europe, Lowe corresponded regularly for the Liberal Christian. She was the author of many books of prose and poetry, including The Olive and the Pine, Love in Spain, Memoir of Charles Lowe, and The Story of Chief Joseph, about Chief Joseph’s efforts to resist the forced removal of the Nez Percétribe from their ancestral lands in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon, leading to the Nez Percé War. 

She was co-founder with M.T. Hollander of the Somerville Educational Union and Honorary President of the Women’s Suffrage League, a director of the Massachusetts Suffrage Association, and president of the Woman's Alliance of the First Unitarian Church, and a member of the Cambridge Branch of the Indian Association. A park is named for her in Somerville at the rear of 346 Somerville Ave on Lake Street, Union Square. 

M.T. Hollander lived in Somerville on Boston Street in Somerville. Although she was married to Jacob L Hollander, Maria Theresa went by M.T. Hollander, rather than Mrs. Hollander. Not only did she not follow convention in her self-identification, but she also owned an independent business at a time when a woman’s income and property would become proprietary to her husband.  M.T. Hollander specialized in dressmaking and children’s wear, and by the 1870’s, her business, known as L.P. Hollander & Company, became extremely successful and well-known, with branches in several states, including New York.  Her sense of freedom and independence drove her to become involved in both the anti-slavery and the women’s suffrage movements. 

Once she turned over her business to her sons in 1878, MT Hollander and her friend, Martha Perry Lowe, founded the Somerville Woman’s Education Union, which became the Suffrage Somerville League that regularly met in Union Square.