Mary Lowell Putnam

Mary Traill Spence Lowell Putnam (December 3, 1810 – June 1, 1898) was an American author. She was the sister of James Russell Lowell, and the daughter of Rev. Charles Lowell. She had an aptitude for acquiring languages: she was eventually fluent in French, Italian, German, Polish, Swedish and Hungarian, and familiar with many other languages. She married Samuel R. Putnam in 1832 and later traveled abroad for several years.

Putnam's literary work was confined to magazine writing until 1844, when she translated from the Swedish Fredrika Bremer's The Handmaid.[note 1] She contributed to the North American Review articles on Polish and Hungarian literature (1848–50), and to the Christian Examiner on the history of Hungary (1850–51). Her name became widely known when she became involved in a controversy with Francis Bowen, editor of the North American Review, regarding the war in Hungary. Bowen attacked the Hungarian revolutionists, whom she upheld.