Poetess and abolitionist. First wife of poet James Russell Lowell, from portrait owned by her niece, Lilley Howe, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Maria White Lowell was an American poet and abolitionist. She was raised under a strict ascetic discipline at an Ursuline Convent. White, who become involved in movements against intemperance and slavery, joined the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and persuaded Lowell to become an abolitionist. She was in poor health and the couple moved to Philadelphia shortly after their marriage in the hopes she would be healed there. In the spring of 1845, the Lowells returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts to make their home at Elmwood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They had four children, though only one survived past infancy. Frail, delicate, and plagued by ill health throughout her life, Maria White Lowell died on October 27, 1853, at the age of 32 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is buried with her husband in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
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