Lucy Larcom (March 5, 1824 - April 17, 1893, in Boston, Massachusetts) was an American poet.
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Larcom was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1824, the ninth of ten children and died in Boston in 1893. She left Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1835 to work cotton mills in Lowell 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. Larcom served as a model for the change in women's roles in society.
In the 1840s (circa 1846), she taught at a school in Illinois before returning to Massachusetts. From 1865 to 1873, she was the editor of Our Young Folks, later renamed St. Nicholas Magazine.[1]
Larcom 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 had nine siblings. Her father passed away when she was very young. Larcom was never married.
Her works include:
An Idyll of Work, 1875
“Among Lowell Mill-Girls: A Reminiscence,” Atlantic Monthly (November 1881)
A New England Girlhood, 1889
Her Poems included:
This is a haunted world. It hath no breeze But is the echo of some voice beloved: Its pines have human tones; its billows wear The color and the sparkle of dear eyes. Its flowers are sweet with touch of tender hands That once clasped ours. All things are beautiful Because of something lovelier than themselves, Which breathes within them, and will never die. — Haunted,—but not with any spectral gloom; Earth is suffused, inhabited by heaven. These blossoms, gathered in familiar paths, With dear companions now passed out of sight, Shall not be laid upon their graves. They live, Since love is deathless. Pleasure now nor pride Is theirs in mortal wise, but hallowing thoughts Will meet the offering, of so little worth, Wanting the benison death has made divine. Oh, her heart’s adrift with one On an endless voyage gone! Night and morning Hannah’s at the window binding shoes.
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.
Larcom Mountain, located in the Ossipee Mountains in New Hampshire, is named after her, as she frequented the area during the late 1800s.
At Wheaton College (Massachusetts) in Norton, Massachusetts, the Larcom Dormitory is named after her.
Larcom's legacy is honored in Lowell, Massachusetts, where she worked as a Mill Girl at the Boott Mills, and as such, the Lucy Larcom Park was named after her to honor her works of literature that recounted her life at the mills. The park can be found between the two Lowell High School buildings, and excerpts from her writings can be found on monuments, statues and other works of art throughout the park.
Larcom, Lucy. "Lucy Larcom". Lucy Larcom. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/l/a/larcom_l.htm. Retrieved 5 December 2011.