Marietta Holley used the conventional mother-wit, dialect comic style common in the nineteenth century to fashion a folksy, rustic philosopher named Samantha Smith Allen, who, according to one critic, entertained "as large an audience ... as has been entertained by the humor of Mark Twain." Content to be known as "Josiah Allen's Wife," sensible Samantha advocated an ever-"megum" (medium) approach to reform as she tackled such issues as suffrage, temperance, woman's rights in general, race, war, white-slave traffic, imperialism, and the conflict between capital and labor.

Born on the family farm in Jefferson County, New York, the youngest of seven children of John Milton and Mary Tabor Holley, Marietta very early began writing generally pious and sentimental poetry. Because of family financial difficulties, her formal education ended when she was fourteen, but she was able to make a modest living thereafter by teaching piano to local students. She...