26 Facts About Lucy Larcom

Lucy Larcom was an American teacher, poet, and author.

Lucy Larcom was one of the first teachers at Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts, teaching there from 1854 to 1862.

In 1889, Larcom published one of the best-known accounts of New England childhood of her time, A New England Girlhood, commonly used as a reference in studying antebellum American childhood; the autobiographical text covers the early years of her life in Beverly Farms and Lowell, Massachusetts.

Lucy Larcom was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, on March 5,1824, to Lois and Benjamin Larcom.

Lucy Larcom was the ninth of ten children, eight of whom were daughters.

Lucy Larcom developed an early interest in reading and writing which she developed by reading children's fiction of the period.

Lucy Larcom borrowed books from the Sabbath-school library, including The Pilgrim's Progress.

Mr Lucy Larcom's death coincided with the rise of the Industrial Revolution in Lowell.

Lucy Larcom was among the very youngest of those employed at the mills.

The ten years that Lucy Larcom spent at the mills made a huge impact on her.

Lucy Larcom became her friend, showing his real interest in her at once by criticising her share in the written contributions of the evening.

Lucy Larcom was then very young, but it was the beginning of an interest and gratitude that continued mutually in an established friendship.

One after another, Lucy Larcom's sisters married out of the home, until only two remained.

At about twenty years of age, Lucy Larcom accompanied the oldest of the Lucy Larcom sisters in Lowell, Emeline, to the then wild prairies of Illinois.

Somewhere in this prairie Lucy Larcom taught school in a vacated log building to a 2 miles neighborhood.

Lucy Larcom's students came from small colonies within this radius.

Lucy Larcom taught under the auspices of a district committee, before whom, previous to induction to office, the candidate was obliged to hold up her right hand and swear to acquaintance, sufficient to instruct from, with writing, spelling, arithmetic, and geography.

Lucy Larcom remained there for six years, conducting classes in rhetoric, English literature, and composition, while sometimes adding history, mental and moral science, or botany.

Lucy Larcom's health began after these few years to suffer from such a constant strain of teaching work that she had to relinquish regular employment, although, from time to time, she lectured upon literature, or taught classes in various young ladies' schools of Boston.

When Our Young Folks magazine was started, Lucy Larcom became one of its assistant editors.

Lucy Larcom served as a model for the change in women's roles in society.

Lucy Larcom was a friend of Harriet Hanson Robinson, who worked in the Lowell mills at the same time.

Lucy Larcom died at age 69 on April 17,1893, in Boston and was buried in her hometown of Beverly, Massachusetts.

Lucy 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 in Norton, Massachusetts, the Lucy 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.