Eliza Lee (Cabot) Follen (15 August 1787-26 January 1860), reformer and juvenile author, used her Boston background to obtain a good education and to become a major participant in the city's literary and religious life.In 1828 she married a German refugee, Charles Follen, who soon became the first German professor at Harvard College. When Follen's appointment was not renewed--possibly because of the anti-slavery activities of him and his wife--he tried preaching, but anti-abolitionists caused his removal. Follen died in 1840 in a steamboat fire. Mrs. Follen settled with her son at West Roxbury, Massachusetts, and wrote for a living. After The Works of Charles Follen, with a Memoir of His Life, 5 vols. (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, 1841-1842), she devoted herself to juvenile literature. Earlier she had edited the Christian Teachers' Manual (1828-1830) and had published a number of instructional works; now she returned to this field, editing the Child's Friend (1843-1850) and producing numerous volumes of stories. In her later years she used her pen in the anti-slavery cause, writing a number of tracts, the most famous being A Letter to Mothers in the Free States (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1855). She died in Brookline, near Boston.