“I wish you would take up such a work as you allude to, in justice to those most interested, and to that class of girls in the Lowell mills. You are the one best fitted to do them full credit. I think the book would meet with a good sale, as labor is now becoming once more honorable and respectable.... We will see if our _Lowell Offering_ cannot be made to live for many, _many_ years to come; and be an object-lesson to the mill-girls of the present day.” Lizzie Turner was born in Lyme, N.H., Aug. 27, 1822. Her father, Jacob Turner, Esq., was a descendant in the sixth generation from Humphrey Turner, who came from England, and settled in Plymouth, Mass. He was for twenty years a justice of the peace in Lyme, and for two years a member of the New Hampshire Legislature. He lost his health before he reached middle life, and about the same time lost nearly all of his property by signing a note for a friend, who ran away to Canada, leaving him to pay the debt. In order to do this he sold his farm; and after paying the sum required, he had just five hundred dollars left. With this he went to Lowell, in 1833, where so many families who had lost their bread-winner had preceded him, and where the mother and children could assist in supporting the home. Mrs. Turner opened a boarding-house for operatives; her children, as fast as they were old enough, went to work in the mill; and thus the invalid father was well taken care of for the rest of his life. Lizzie went into the mill to work at eleven years of age. Her school-days ended at fourteen, when she was just fitted for the high school, having worked at least two-thirds of the time in the factory; and after this her time and strength were needed to help support the family. She was one of the very earliest of the writers for _The Offering_, and she continued to be a contributor until Mr. Thomas ceased to be the editor. Her early recollections are very valuable, and all through these pages I have made free use of what information she has given me. She was just eighteen when she began her contributions; and her own account of her connection with the magazine and of its inception, will be of interest here. She says:-- “The whole plan of his Circle and _Offering_ originated with Brother Thomas. I remember his saying one evening, after the reading of our papers, that there were many of the articles well worthy of publication, and that he should publish them in a magazine, to ‘show what factory-girls could do.’... I must tell you that I had never attempted writing anything but letters till Brother Thomas insisted that I _must_ write something for the Circle, so that almost my first essays in composition were those articles.” Miss Turner was one of the paid contributors; she bought herself a mahogany bureau with some of this money, and that article of furniture she cherishes among her choicest possessions, as a most valuable memento of the old _Lowell Offering_.