Background
Lucy Larcom was born on March 5, 1824, in Beverly, Massachusetts, United States.
Lucy Larcom at college
Lucy Larcom with signature
Lucy Larcom was born on March 5, 1824, in Beverly, Massachusetts, United States.
Lucy and her sister settled close to St. Louis, and she taught at some local schools before entering Monticello Female Seminary as a half-student, half-teacher. She graduated in 1852 and returned to Beverly. She then went on to become a formal teacher at Wheaton Seminary in Norton, MA. She taught English Literature, Moral Philosophy, Logic, History and Botany while at Wheaton, and it was at this time that she started writing prolifically and also editing some books.
Lucy 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. 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. 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.
She was a strong abolitionist and patriot, and she rejoiced over the election of Abraham Lincoln as President.