Lucy Larcom

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Lucy Larcom (March 5, 1824 - April 17, 1893, in Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts) was an American poet. She was the ninth of ten children. Lucy left Beverly in 1835 to work in the cotton mills in Lowell, Massachusetts from the ages of 11 to 21. As a mill girl she hoped to earn some extra money for her family. While working at the mills in Lowell, Lucy made a huge impact. She wrote and published many of her songs, poems, and letters describing her life at the mills. Her idealistic poems caught the attention of John Greenleaf Whittier. Lucy served as a model for the change in women's roles in society.

Larcom has penned one of the best accounts of New England childhood of her time, A New England Girlhood, commonly used as a reference in studying early American childhood.

Larcom's influence is still felt in her hometown of Beverly. A local literary magazine entitled, The Larcom Review is named for her, as is the library at the Beverly High School.

[edit] External links

• Works by Lucy Larcom at Project Gutenberg