While in Lowell, Cate wrote for the
Lowell Offering, in which she published under several pen names including "D," "Jennie," "Jane," "E. J. D," and "Frankin, NH." Pieces such as "Leisure Hours of the Mill Girls" in the
Lowell Offering of 1842 have been attributed to her. She also wrote pieces for the
Lowell Offering's successor, the
New England Offering, including "Rights and Duties of Mill Girls." Her most well-known work is
Lights and Shadows of Factory Life in New England, a series that appeared in
The New World in 1843. The stories in it trace the lives of three different fictional women – Emma Hale, Helen Gould, and Kate Kimball—who come to work in the mills for different reasons. According to an advertisement for another of Cate's books,
Lights and Shadows sold 20,000 copies. In addition to pieces in the
Offering, she published in the
Olive Branch, ''
Godey's Lady's Book, and Peterson's'' Magazine. In 1859, a New Hampshire newspaper referred to her being "favorably and widely known in the world of letters under the nom de plum of 'The Author of Susy L.'s Diary."
Harriet Hanson Robison claimed that Cate's "admirers called her 'the Edgeworth of New England,'" referring presumably to
Maria Edgeworth, a popular Irish writer of the time. In 1889, she was included on a list of "prominent American literary women; however, her works are not widely read or well-known today. == Works ==