New England Girlhood

by Lucy Larcom

Book by Larcom, Lucy

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Read For School, History, Biography Memoir

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1889

About the author

Lucy Larcom was an American teacher, poet, and author. Larcom was one of the first teachers at Wheaton Female Seminary, now Wheaton College. Her autobiography, published in 1889, is a valuable resource in determining what childhood was like in New England during her time.

Reviews

[Bob Newman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Pressed Flower Whose Scent Has Long Gone

People in the following three categories will find this book interesting and useful : 1) feminists interested in 19th century women's lives and attitudes; 2) researchers into New England morals and values as expressed in exhortatory literature of the 19th century and 3) those who are studying lower middle class American education and intellectual interests as found in New England mill towns and the Mid-West in the mid-1800s. The author began life in the town of Beverly, Mass., which happens to be just across the water from my home town. Thus, I found a certain interest in her reminiscences about the town and countryside in the 1820s and `30s. Lowell, Mass., where the author worked for some years in the period 1835-1845, was at the time the site of a new industrial experiment, with Yankee farm girls brought in to provide a work force that was better educated and more disciplined than most. At the end of that period, the owners decided they could do better with less-educated immigrants who would not strike for their rights. America has changed so dramatically in the 130 years since this book was written that I doubt if most people would find A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD too engrossing. It is chock full of moralizing homilies about life, beauty, religion, and high-minded industry. The smallest unpleasant thing is totally avoided, there is not the tiniest complaint or hint of rebellion. Earnest Christian fundamentalist sentiment suffuses the pages along with didactic glances at everything. More than once I was reminded of Chinese Communist textbooks, so terribly sincere were her chapters. There is still a modicum of interest in all this if you read the book in the light of "Wow! What a change a century can make in a culture !" Can you imagine a modern woman writing chapters on hymnbooks or uplifting poetry in her autobiography ? Yet, given the times, this was not strange, however so it appears today. In short, I cannot say that this book will enthrall too many people---its concerns and style are just too remote from the early 21st century.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It is amazing to read the little details of a young life lived so many years ago—the 1820s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. It’s fascinating to see how they were so similar to us, and yet so different. Lucy’s descriptions of her family were beautiful to read about. Her earliest memories, some from younger than two, were fascinating. I loved the parts where she wrote of her Puritan Faith—indeed, this is a Christian book, and lots of wisdom can be taken from it. I loved her little lessons written throughout in this regard. I must say, some parts of this were a little dull (which means less exciting than a novel!), and she quoted a few too many poems, which I didn’t take the time to appreciate. That was my own fault. Other than that this was a beautiful slow and simple book about times past. ❤️

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the poetic language and precision with which Larcom writes. I loved experiencing 1800s New England secondhand.

[Peggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucy Larcom, a poet, wrote this autobiography of her childhood in 1889. She was born in Beverly, Massachusetts near the Atlantic Ocean. Due to her father's early death when she was six or seven, the family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where her mother ran a boarding house for the girls who worked in the mills. Lucy and her sisters worked in the mills as well. The author later taught in the "western territories" (Illinois)and eventually returned to Beverly where she continued to teach school. After her retirement from teaching, she was the editor of "Our Young Folks," which later became "St. Nicholas Magazine."

The book was an interesting look back at an earlier time period. The one fault I found with the book was that the author didn't furnish precise dates. I had to "google" her name to find out that she was born in 1824(died in 1893).

[Laurie Elliot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating autobiography reminds me of so many things - from my own New England childhood to the reason why one really needs to consult original sources. Somehow I had never thought of mill girls in the 1800s going to college! But some did!

It was my second listen and likely not my last.
I've also downloaded the book in a pdf file from Archive.org to use with my grandchildren learning to read. It will make a good companion book to The Little House series.

[Chloe]

Read in class ("Women in America to 1900")

[Kristin Canfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still not sure why this is her most famous work.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read some reviews on Goodreads that said that appeal is probably limited for this book, and the reviewers may be right. We hear the voice of a 19th century white woman, proudly decended from New England's first Puritan settlers, talking of a childhood which began in old coastal Beverly, Massachusetts not so very long after the country's founding and the great age of sail. The family was comfortable, but not rich by any means. Lucy Larcom lost her father at an early age. Her smart mother decided after much thought to move her family now without much of an income, to Lowell, Massachusetts, an emerging textile hub. There she would open a boarding house for girls who were coming down from northern New England to work in the mills. Lucy did a lot of her growing up right there in the middle of Lowell where she worked both at home and in the textile factories which defined the city at the time.

I found the book to be fascinating, and I really have to call it lovely. Lucy Larcom was a precocious child, enamored of the hymns and poetry that surrounded her daily through her religion and life in general. Lots of people wrote poetry back then, for fun and personal expression. At age four Lucy was busy memorizing the dozens that she liked. She kept that early love of learning all her life. I was interested in her descriptions of old Beverly. If you squint, and get rid of the modern buildings, you can see the hills and trails still there through her eyes. She describes with interest the people she saw around town with differing backgrounds, those who worked on the ships from Europe and from the many Islands of the world. She talks of the black families who chose to remain long after slavery in Massachusetts was abolished; some she knew personally, and called them "respectable and respected ". She seems to have been a fair minded little girl.

Lowell between 1830 and 1850 or so, was actively recruiting northern New England farm girls, young women with a thirst for knowledge, a need for money, and largely equipped with open and social personalities, different from Lucy's more reserved demeanor by her own admission. Corporate greed had not yet taken over the system. The factories, libraries, schools, and smart townspeople provided all manner of classes, lectures, and organizations, that the girls could take advantage of, and they did. Speakers with well known names came to town. Individuals and groups started "improvement" clubs, organized newspaper start ups, and they wrote poetry and prose like crazy. Some went on to higher education and careers, while others brought a wider outlook back to the towns of their births. It is fun to read about all of this creativity bubbling up among working people so long ago.

Lucy Larcom, along with a sister and a friend, went from Lowell to the West, where she taught in schools and was finally successful in acquiring the higher education that she had always wanted and couldn't afford. She went on to become an author, a poet, and always a teacher, a vocation that she found particularly satisfying. I found the last few pages of her memoir where she describes her thoughts on teaching and learning to be poignant, excellent reading for someone who has been a teacher. Lucy Larcom's name is well known in Beverly and Lowell, but most of her books aren't easy to come by. I found my old copy at a museum book sale. The other titles that I have looked for are in library reference and historical rooms, not to be checked out, and there don't seem to be re-issues in the stores. I hope to explore some of those protected volumes one day soon.

[Lance Caselman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a pleasant surprise. I found it fascinating and the writing beautiful. I feel like I traveled in time and had a glimpse of a vanished world. Here's a little taste.

"When supper was finished, and the tea-kettle was pushed back on the crane, and the backlog had been reduced to a heap of fiery embers, then was the time for listening to sailor yarns and ghost and witch legends. The wonder seems somehow to have faded out of those tales of eld since the gleam of red-hot coals died away from the hearthstone. The shutting up of the great fireplaces and the introduction of stoves marks an era; the abdication of shaggy Romance and the enthronement of elegant Commonplace—sometimes, alas! the opposite of elegant—at the New England fireside.

"Have we indeed a fireside any longer in the old sense? It hardly seems as if the young people of to-day can really understand the poetry of English domestic life, reading it, as they must, by a reflected illumination from the past."

[Dave E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucy Larcom writes about growing up in eastern Massachusetts in the first half of the 19th century. While she wrote about her early life in a small coastal town, followed by her experiences working in a mill as a young girl in Lowell, she doesn't focus on her environment or the physical world. Instead the book was written as a guide to life for girls in the late 1800s, with the author focusing on her precocious love for education, poetry, hymns and writing. An interesting book, despite not being what I expected.

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

A New England Girlhood is a tenderly ingenuous account of Lucy Larcom’s early life in the mid-19th century.
She was privileged, lucky, and deeply and deftly able to explore her own experiences.
It’s a pleasant read, indeed.

Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

let me read

[Lexi Kupor · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for a class, but very charming language and fulfilling to see the extension of things I feel now back a few centuries

[Jus · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A New England Girlhood” by Lucy Larcom. I dipped in and out of this book. Interesting read, about her life experiences around 1824 to 1830 in Beverly, Massachusetts.

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book barely kept my attention, and that's why it sat on my nightstand for almost two years. There was always some other book that was more compelling, so this one had to wait its turn over and over again. I finally plowed through it, and am so glad I can move onto other things. I'm certain that there are some great nuggets of wisdom here, and a useful memory of historical details from the POV of a "normal" white protestant woman of her era. I enjoyed the energy she brought to the notion of being a very young girl, adored by her family, and left to her own devices before the millwork began.

I bristled at the few times she spoke of people who were Other, whether it be the foreign people of her port town, or the Native Americans with their "pathetic" ways. She definitely didn't reflect much on those people, but did plenty of analysis on her faith and all those HYMNS. And women were put on this earth to be helpers! I found myself mostly bored by the end, and really wishing this book was less about the girlhood part, and more about the major culture shock she alluded to while on assignment to spread Christianity to the West.

I'm more used to reading fiction, rather than memoirs. This one felt to me like I was sitting in front of an elderly woman in a rocking chair with her book of hymns, and she was telling me her story—with more telling than showing. Parts were boring as she got lost in her memories. She didn't really build scenes, so much as reminisce about them.

[Carolina · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I can’t say I’m vibing with some of the religious themes in here, she really ate with the descriptions of girlhood and existential dread/joy? It’s weird to think that even that far in the past girlhood still remained relatively similar

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful reflections on what it took to be an educated, working girl in America 150 years ago.

[Avis Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

A New England Girlhood is a monstrously boring book. Avoid.