“Lucy Larcom and Harriet Hanson: Voices of the Mills” and “Lyddie” (Analysis Essay)

In the texts, “Lucy Larcom and Harriet Hanson: Voices of the Mills” by Phillip Hoose, and “Lyddie” by Katherine Patterson, there is a similar central idea between the two. The central idea shown in the text is about the hard labor girls in the 1800s had to go through when working in boarding houses or mills.

One reason why this is the central idea is because in “Lucy Larcom and Harriet Hanson: Voices of the Mills”, it states that Lowell mill girls only had very few breaks and had to work all day and afternoon. “Lowell mill girls got a fifteen-minute breakfast break and another thirty minutes for lunch at noon. Most stood all day. The little ones often fell asleep standing up.”. This shows that not only were the mill girls working all day, but they also had little to no breaks during work-time.

It also shows this in paragraph two of Lyddie when it says “Her stomach rumbled, but she ignored it. There would be no breakfast until seven, and that was two and a half hours away.” This evidence shows that not only did they have to get up early, but they had to wait two and a half hours until they could even eat breakfast.