Along with two of her sisters, she owned and operated the largest wig factory in the state, making her mark on the growing field of hair-care products for African-American women.
On one occasion in 1853, the sisters purchased tickets to an opera at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston, but were told they could only sit in the theater's gallery with the other Black patrons.
Sarah took the case to the First District Court of Essex County, Massachusetts, ultimately winning five hundred dollars in damages for the two sisters.
[4] Shortly after the deaths of her husband and daughter, Putnam left her Salem businesses in the hands of her sisters Cecelia and Maritcha and joined Sarah Parker Remond in her travels across Europe.
[3] In 1885, Caroline and Edmund, joined by Maritcha, moved to Rome to live permanently with Sarah, who had trained as a physician and established a medical practice there.
The sisters continued their anti-slavery activism in Italy, maintaining connections with American and European abolitionists and hosting Frederick Douglass at their home in 1886.
[1] Caroline also passed her abolitionist convictions along to her son, who worked as a foreign correspondent for the National Anti-Slavery Standard while a student in Europe.