Mary E. Wilkins Freeman was a prominent 19th century American author. She was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, and attended Mount Holyoke College and West Brattleboro Seminary. Freeman began writing stories and verse for children while still a teenager to help support her family. She produced more than two dozen volumes of published short stories and novels. She is best known for two collections of stories, A Humble Romance and Other Stories (1887) and A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891). Her stories deal mostly with New England life. Freeman is also remembered for her novel Pembroke (1894). In April 1926, Freeman became the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Medal for Distinction in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The Portion of Labor is one of the first labor novels. It's a closely detailed look with finely drawn characters at the relations between labor and capital, and the economic conditions of a New England town. Freeman's heroine leads a strike by workers in a shoe factory for better wages and working conditions, but her efforts are complicated by her feelings for the owner.