The Baltimore Bell

Martha Bright, born 1908, is too tall, too strong, too wrong for the world she was born into. Her parents gave her away and bought a son instead.

Emma, the orphanage cook, teaches Martha to survive through hard work. Emma gives Martha purpose, until one night when everything changes.

At fifteen, Martha needs a new name and a new life. She becomes Mary Johnson and disappears onto the Atlantic steamships, where women like her can work unseen in the belly of the ship.

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