- Lucy Larcom
Lucy Larcom (
March 5 ,1824 -April 17 ,1893 , inBoston, Massachusetts ) was an American poet.Biography
Larcom was the ninth of ten children. She left
Beverly, Massachusetts , in 1835 to work in thecotton mill s 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 ofJohn Greenleaf Whittier . Larcom served as a model for the change in women's roles in society.In the 1840s, 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". [Watts, Emily Stipes. "The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945". Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1978: 191. ISBN 0-292-76540-2]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.Legacy
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 theOssipee Mountains inNew Hampshire , is named after her, as she frequented the area during the late 1800s.References
External links
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