As its popularity grew, workers contributed poems, ballads, essays and fiction – often using their characters to report on conditions and situations in their lives.

In the first issue, "A Letter about Old Maids" suggested that "sisters, spinsters, lay-nuns, &c" were an essential component of God's "wise design".

[3] Later issues – particularly in the wake of labor unrest in the factories – included an article about the value of organizing and an essay about suicide among the Lowell girls.

[4] Among its contributors: Eliza G. Cate, Betsey Guppy Chamberlain, Abba Goddard, Lucy Larcom, Harriet Hanson Robinson,[5][6] and Augusta Harvey Worthen.

[9] Harriet Farley, against her family and friends wishes, left Atkinson, New Hampshire in 1838 to work in Lowell's textile mills.