1830s – Page 2 – The Envious Lobster

Annie’s Garden

By Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

Annotations by Jessica Abell/JB

Original illustration by L.B. Humphrey from the 1875 edition of *Little Songs*.

In little Annie's Garden 
   Grew all sorts of posies;
There were pinks, and mignonette,
   And tulips, and roses.

Sweet peas, and morning glories,
   A bed of violets blue,
And marigolds, and asters,
   In Annie's garden grew.

There the bees went for honey,
   And the humming-birds too;
And there the pretty butterflies
   And the lady-birds flew.

And there among her flowers,
   Every bright and pleasant day,
In her own pretty garden
   Little Annie went to play.

Original illustration (artist unknown) from the 1889 edition of *Little Songs*.

Follen, Eliza Lee Cabot. “Annie’s Garden,” in Little Songs, 13. Lee and Shepard, 1875.

Contexts

The 1875 version of Follen’s book of songs for children is another reprinting of an earlier publication. The first American edition was published in 1832, with a second, revised edition following in 1856. Follen died in 1860, but this printing referenced her 1856 illustrated volume in its preface:

“The ‘Little Songs’ of the lamented Eliza Lee Follen, were first published in 1832, with the object, as she stated in her preface, ‘to endeavor to catch something of that good-humored pleasantry, that musical nonsense, which makes Mother Goose so attractive to children of all ages.’ It has passed through numerous editions, and is now in universal demand. In the present edition, all the songs are retained. The illustrations were designed expressly for this work by Miss L. B. Humphrey. In sending it forth, the publishers heartily indorse the words of the author, in a former edition: ‘I will hope that the little folks will welcome this little book in its new dress, and make much of it; for it was at first made, and is now adorned with pictures, on purpose to please them.'”

Follen was well-educated and an early supporter of the antislavery movement in Massachusetts. She was a prolific writer of children’s poems and stories and published several volumes of her own work and translations of French writer François Fénelon. Following his 1840 death in a shipwreck, she began working on a memoir of his life, which she published in 1844 with an appendix that collected some of his poems, prayers, and speeches. Her death on January 26, 1860, was mourned in the February 3, 1860 edition of the Boston newspaper Liberator:

“A heavy cloud was over the Anti-Slavery Anniversary in Boston, last week, in consequence of the painful intelligence of the sudden death of the gifted, beloved, and greatly honored Mrs. Eliza Lee Follen, widow of the late Professor Charles Follen, at Brookline on Thursday, 27th ult. after an illness of a few days, of typhoid fever, aged 72 years and 6 months. A full tribute to her character and worth hereafter.”

On February 24, 1860, the Liberator published a longer article by A. S. Standard that claimed, “Mrs. Follen has been so long an integral part of the Anti-Slavery movement, that it is hard to understand how it can exist without her. Very few indeed, none but the very earliest founders, could claim precedence of her in its list of honor.”

Follen intended this song to be sung to the tune of “Malbrooke,” an alternate name for the French song “Marlbrough S’en Va-t-en Guerre” (Marlbrough Goes to War). In the mid-19th century, the melody was coupled with new English lyrics to become “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

Resources for Further Study

The full version of the 1875 edition of Little Songs with illustrations is available on Google Books. Little Songs was later reprinted as part of the Twilight Stories series published by Lee & Shepard, which is digitized on Hathi Trust. Project Gutenberg has the text-only 1856 version.
More of Follen’s works are collected and available online through the University of Pennsylvania’s Online Books Page.

The Sugar Plums

By William Lloyd Garrison

Annotations by Celia Hawley

Samuel Halpert. *Farm Interior*. Oil on canvas, 1924. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

No, no, pretty sugar-plums! stay where you are!
Though my grandmother sent you to me from so far!
You look very nice, you would taste very sweet,
And I love you right well, yet not one will I eat.

For the poor slaves have labored, far down in the south,
To make you so sweet, and so nice for my mouth!
But I want no slaves toiling for me in the sun,
Driven on with the whip, till the long day is done. [1]

Perhaps some poor slave-child that hoed up the ground,
Round the cane in whose rich juice your sweetness was found, [2]
Was flogged till his mother cried sadly to see,
And I’m sure I want nobody beaten for me.

Artist Unknown. *Sugar Cane Plantation, La*. Stereograph, c. 1920s. Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.

Thus said little Fanny, and skipped off to play,
Leaving all her nice sugar-plums just where they lay;
As merry as if they had gone in her mouth,
And she had not cared for the slaves in the south. [3]

Garrison, William Lloyed. “The Sugar Plums,” IN Juvenile Poems: For the use of free American children, of every complexion, 18. Boston: Garrison & knapp, 1835.

Contexts

Who Writes for Black Children?: African American Children’s Literature before 1900, Katharine Capshaw and Anna Mae Duane, editors. The book references the Garrison’s Juvenile Poems and includes an excerpt by Garrison in its preface: “If … we desire to see our land delivered from the curse of prejudice and slavery, we must direct our efforts chiefly to the rising generation, whose minds are untainted, whose opinions unfashioned, and whose sympathies are true to nature in its purity.” The editors observe that Juvenile Poems is probably the first American book title that is consciously worded to include all children, regardless of race.

Free Produce Movement: This movement was about boycotting goods produced by slaves in Britain and America, and featured Quakers at its forefront.

Resources for Further Study

Enterprising Youth: Social Values and Acculturation by Monika Elbert includes Lesley Ginsberg’s essay referencing Garrison’s Juvenile Poems.
How Sugar Changed the World by Heather Whipps
Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History by Sidney Mintz
Smithsonian American Art Museum’s page on Samuel Halpert

Contemporary Connections

PBS Interview: Before cotton, sugar established America’s reliance on slave labor

[1] “Sugar slavery was the key component in what historians call The Trade Triangle, a network whereby slaves were sent to work on New World plantations, the product of their labor was sent to a European capital to be sold and other goods were brought to Africa to purchase more slaves.” Heather Whipps; see resources below.

[2] About sugar cane: “White Gold, as British colonists called it, was the engine of the slave trade that brought millions of Africans to the Americas beginning in the early 16th-century.” Heather Whipps

[3] “The ‘free produce’ movement was a boycott of any goods produced with slave labour. It was seen as a way of fighting slavery by having consumers buy only produce from non-slave labour. The movement was active in North America from the beginning of the abolitionist movement of the 1790s to the end of slavery in the 1860s.” Heather Whipps

About This Site

Edited by Karen Kilcup and coedited by Rene Marzuk and Josh Benjamin, The Envious Lobster collects earlier U.S. nature writing and environmental writing for children. Aimed at a broad audience including scholars, teachers at all levels, students, parents, reading groups, and (of course) children, the current draft anthology comprises about 300 entries in multiple genres. As the editorial collective expands, we anticipate that the anthology will, too. If you have ideas about texts or supporting materials you would like to see included, please email Professor Kilcup, the General Editor (klkilcup AT uncg DOT edu).