Martha Haines Butt

Martha Haines Butt (after marriage, Bennett; November 22, 1833 – February 9, 1871) was an American proslavery author primarily known by her maiden name. She was a contributor to various periodicals and magazines, in both the North and South. At the age of 19, she published Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, an 1853 plantation fiction novel. Though she had written anti-woman's rights editorials in the 1850s, by 1870, she supported women's suffrage.

Biography Martha Haines Butt was born in Norfolk, Virginia, November 22, 1833. She was an only child. Her father, Francis Butt, was of English ancestry; her mother, Mary Ann Morriss Butt, a milliner, was of French ancestry. Butt's volume of Leisure Moments was a collection of her short stories, essays, and sketches. Pastimes with Little Friends was published in 1866. Butt was an occasional contributor to the periodical press of the country, and a frequent writer to the Ladies' Home Journal.

Butt's arm and hand were copied as a model by the artist William Randolph Barbee, of Virginia, for the statue of the Fisher Girl.

Selected works

Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South, 1853 The Leisure Moments of Miss Martha Haines Butt, A.M., 1860 Pastimes with My Little Friends, 1866