Historian Cecilia Morgan argues that the Secord story became famous in the 1880s when upper-class women sought to strengthen the emotional ties between Canadian women and the British Empire. She writes that they needed a female heroine to validate their claims for women's suffrage. The first product of their campaign was Sarah Anne Curzon's verse drama "Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812" in 1887. The play was a catalyst for "a deluge of articles and entries on Secord that filled Canadian histories and school textbooks at the turn of the 20th century". Although critics gave the play negative reviews, it was the first full work devoted to Secord's story and popularized her image.