Customer Reviews (2)

Pious Inspirational Poet of 19th century America
Lucy Larcom (1824-1893), born into a large church going New England family and herself a lifelong maid, reached the status of being one of the better known minor poets of her time, but is now nearly forgotten.
I became acquainted with Lucy Larcom through reading biographies about and the published letters of John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), a more major 19th century Quaker New England poet and anti-slavery reformer who, alas, has been largely forgotten in our time.
After the early death of her father, Lucy and other members of her family were pressed financially. In her youth this bright girl worked in the mills of Lowell, Massachusetts. Later she went to the greater St. Louis area as a teacher before returning
to New England where she taught and wrote.
Her own persistence and poetic gifts along with the help of the poet Whittier gradually elevated her to being a recognized poet. Perhaps her most enduring book (which I have not yet read) was A New England Girlhood, a prose autobiographical volume.
Lucy was intelligent, pious and genial and I am glad to have gotten to know her better through this biography. An older sister, Emeline, was of special inspiration and assistance to Lucy. Emeline, a lifelong orthodox Congregationalist and a person of steadfast character, experienced many trials during her life. In some respects I thought that I might have learned more about noble character if a thorough biography of Emeline could be written. This is not to belittle Lucy; only to say that the hidden life of one family member may have more things to teach us about the depths of life than that of the limelight of another family member.

Lucy Larcom
Lucy Larcom was a Mill Girl in Lowell, MA.She went west and taught school on the frontier (Illinois).Always interested in poetry, Lucy became a writer later in the 19th Century and good friends with John Greenleaf Whittier.Shirley Marchalonis is a wonderful writer.This book is easy and enjoyable to read. ... Read more

Book Description
Arriving in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1830s after the death of her shipmaster father, the eleven-year-old Lucy Larcom went to work in a textile mill to help her family make ends meet. Originally published in 1889, her autobiography offers glimpses of the early years of the American factory system as well as of the social influences on her development. It remains an important and illuminating document of the Industrial Revolution and nineteenth-century cultural history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Pressed Flower Whose Scent Has Long Gone
People in the following three categories will find this book interesting and useful :1) feminists interested in 19th century women's lives and attitudes; 2) researchers into New England morals and values as expressedin exhortatory literature of the 19th century and 3) those who are studyinglower middle class American education and intellectual interests as foundin New England mill towns and the Mid-West in the mid-1800s.The authorbegan life in the town of Beverly, Mass., which happens to be just acrossthe water from my home town.Thus, I found a certain interest in herreminiscences about the town and countryside in the 1820s and `30s. Lowell, Mass., where the author worked for some years in the period1835-1845, was at the time the site of a new industrial experiment, withYankee farm girls brought in to provide a work force that was bettereducated and more disciplined than most.At the end of that period, theowners decided they could do better with less-educated immigrants who wouldnot strike for their rights.America has changed so dramatically in the111 years since this book was written that I doubt if most people wouldfind A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD too engrossing.It is chock full of moralizinghomilies about life, beauty, religion, and high-minded industry.Thesmallest unpleasant thing is totally avoided, there is not the tiniestcomplaint or hint of rebellion.Earnest Christian fundamentalist sentimentsuffuses the pages along with didactic glances at everything.More thanonce I was reminded of Chinese Communist textbooks, so terribly sincerewere her chapters.There is still a modicum of interest in all this if youread the book in the light of "Wow!What a change a century can make in aculture !"Can you imagine a modern woman writing chapters on hymnbooks oruplifting poetry in her autobiography ?Yet, given the times, this was notstrange, however so it appears today.In short, I cannot say that thisbook will enthrall too many people---its concerns and style are just tooremote from the early 21st century. ... Read more