Biographical Sketches

Lucy Larcom (1824-1893) was a poet, teacher, abolitionist, and editor from Beverly and Lowell, Mass. She was the daughter of Benjamin Larcom, a sea captain, and Lois (Barrett) Larcom. As a girl, she went to work in the Lowell, Mass. mills, attending school part of the year. She wrote poetry and short stories from an early age. It was at Lowell that she first met poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who became a mentor and friend.

At 22, Larcom moved to Illinois to work as a teacher, and while there she attended the Monticello Female Seminary in Godfrey. She returned to Massachusetts and taught at Wheaton Seminary in Norton from 1854 to 1862 while continuing to write. Her poems were printed in prestigious journals and magazines, and she edited Our Young Folks, a children's periodical. Her published works include Similitudes from the Ocean and the Prairie (1854), Poems (1868), An Idyl of Work (1875), Wild Roses of Cape Ann, and Other Poems (1881), the autobiographical A New England Girlhood (1889), and As It Is in Heaven (1892).

Daniel Dulany Addison (1863-1936) was an Episcopal priest, historian, and writer. His biography of Larcom is entitled Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1894).