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 Lucy
Larcom
Mill Girl, Teacher, and
Poetess
1826-1893
Lucy Larcom was born in 1826 by
the seashore in Beverly, Massachusetts, the
second youngest of nine sisters. Her father,
Benjamin Larcom, was a merchant and sea captain
who was well known for his piety. He took great
pains to teach his children from the Bible and
every Sunday afternoon was spent in Bible
lessons. When Lucy was only 9, her father died
and left the family without adequate provision.
Her mother, Lois Barrett Larcom, moved the
family to the mill town of Lowell. Here Mrs.
Larcom kept a boarding house for the mill girls,
making it more than just a boarding house, but a
home.
After moving to Lowell, Lucy’s formal schooling
ceased as she joined her sisters in the mill to
help with family finances. She entered one of
the mills as a “doffer”. A “doffer” was one who
took off empty bobbins and put on full ones. She
continued working at various mill jobs for the
next ten years.
Lucy loved books and literary pursuit. While
living in Beverly, she had learned to love good
books. She delighted in “Pilgrim’s Progress” and
poured over English poetry. She was well trained
in the Bible and continued religious reading
throughout her life. Her love of learning led
her to take advantage of every opportunity to
enlarge her studies. While she worked at the
mill some kind of reading and literary club was
formed by the mill girls and several of them
wrote papers to be read at the meetings. It was
then that the poet Whittier was editing a paper
in Lowell and became interested in these young
women who were thirsting after knowledge. In
fact, she became lifelong friends with
Whittier’s sister.
When Lucy was about twenty years
old she traveled to Illinois with her favorite
sister, Emiline. There she taught district
school in a vacated log building. She received
forty dollars for three months of work, which
was thought to be a good wage. She continued in
that job for three years until she had a chance
to further her education.
In 1849, Lucy was able to attend
the Monticello Female Seminary in Godfrey,
Illinois for three years. Upon finishing her
education at this institution, Lucy returned to
her home town of Beverly to teach. After
teaching private classes for a few years, she
was called to a position in Wheaton Female
Seminary, where she taught for six years with
much success. While in Wheaton she taught
English literature and rhetoric where she made
suggestions to the administration for
improvement in courses and lecturing. She also
taught moral philosophy, logic, history, and
botany, and in addition she founded the college
newspaper.
Maintaining this rigorous
schedule proved too much for her and her health
began to fail. She resigned from teaching and
turned to literary work. She edited “Our Young
Folks” a notable children’s periodical of the
day published by Ticknor & Fields, who put out
the Atlantic Monthly. Lucy also had work
published in other leading periodicals.
Lucy was a poetess of friendship
and nature. Her girlhood days at Beverly, with
its seaside and beautiful scenery, largely
influence the substance and style of her
writing. Her work was also spiritually uplifting
and full of typical nineteenth century
expressions of sentiment.
Always considering her poetry an
extension of her faith, her deep love for God
and her Christian faith pervaded her writings.
In fact, she had once claimed that she would
write only hymns if the magazines would take
them. In her last three years she wrote three
prose works of Christian inspiration that were
well received.
While her writings were quite
extensive, perhaps her greatest work, for which
she is chiefly remembered, was her
autobiographical sketch “ A New England
Girlhood”, which covered her life until 1852 and
captures the classic pattern of small-town
upbringing and values.
Miss Larcom died in 1893 from a
heart ailment when she was sixty-seven years
old. While she died in Boston, she was buried in
an unmarked grave in Central Cemetery in
Beverly, Mass.
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