be a subject of abject humiliation and torment for her white oppressors. It was a powerful poem featured in an abolitionist's publication called the Liberty Bell. It was published by Friends of Freedom, an anti-slavery society in 1848.
Mrs. Browning's "The Cry of the Children" and "The Cry of the Human" were malicious attacks on the employment of child labor in factories, and on the protectionists who kept up the price of bread. In Ms. Barrett's "The Cry of the Children" she opens with a plea to her fellow man; "Do you hear the children weeping, O my brothers, / Ere the sorrow comes with years? / They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, / And that cannot stop their tears." (1-4). Toward the closing, Barrett addresses the whole nation with the same plea for the children, .
How long, they say, how long, O cruel nation,.
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,-.
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,.
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?.
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,.
Piscopo 3 .
And your purple shows your path!.
But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper.
Than the strong man in his wrath .
(153-160).
The poem was widely commented on. Hayter writes in her biography of Browning, "There is more intellect, and more individual character in the 1844 volumes than in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's earlier works, and the volumes had a considerable success with the critics, and influenced public opinion in favor of reform"(Hayter 312). Mrs. Browning's work helped fuel the fire of reform concerning factories working conditions, and shorter work shifts, i.e. the reduction of the 16 hr. shift.
Elizabeth gained prestige for her famous Aurora Leigh, which was published in 1857. The novel discussed freedom for women with a particular emphasis on female writers.