Series 2: Journals and Other Writings, 1821 - 1858

Mira wrote poetry on a wide variety of topics including tributes to individual family members and personal friends as well as special occasions associated with them, memorials to the deceased including two of her children who died within a week of one another, and love and friendship between herself and female friends.

The major theme prevailing in her poetry is one of freedom for all oppressed peoples - enslaved people, women, Native Americans and Jewish people. The poems include direct moralizing reproaches to the injustices committed by the Southern states, American law, politicians and society at large. Other topics include her praise of Massachusetts politics in contrast to that of South Carolina. Mira Townsend frequently stresses the role of female participation in the struggles to eliminate oppression, especially slavery, and to achieve freedom for all humanity. In her 1845 five page "Address to the Jews," she praises Israel for its historical liberations and modern day progress, all the while urging Jews to participate in the struggle against slavery in the United States.

Her correspondents included her husband, daughters, parents and in-laws and various relatives as well as several close female friends. She often wrote these particular letters in various forms of verse.