Lyddie: Voices from the Field - Chapter 11 Novels

Listening to her roommate read Oliver Twist aloud each night brings welcome relief and pleasure to Lyddie. Do you remember having someone read to you in school or before bed? Do you like listening to audiobooks or podcasts?

The book that captures Lyddie’s imagination (Oliver Twist) was written by British author Charles Dickens and published in serial form from 1837 to 1839. Readers back then only got to read two chapters at a time and had to wait a month for the next installment; many chapters ended with “cliffhangers” that kept readers on the edge of their seats until they could get the next chapter. Oliver Twist was Dickens’ second novel, and it was very popular in both England and America. Dickens was the most famous author of his time; he was greeted as a celebrity when he visited America – and Lowell specifically – in 1842. He admired the conditions of Lowell’s mills and the young women who worked in them. Given the popularity of Dickens and his work, it’s not surprising that Lyddie would encounter Oliver Twist, which was widely available in bookshops and libraries in America.

But this specific book seems to be important to her. She listens to the whole book (it’s long!), spends precious wages to borrow a copy of it from the lending library and eventually to buy her own copy, painstakingly hand-writes entire pages of it, and re-reads the story repeatedly. The story is particularly compelling to her, perhaps because she identifies with the main character, a young person who struggles in a harsh world without any parental guidance or care. Oliver is an orphan who begins life in a miserable workhouse where he and other children are treated terribly. He eventually escapes to London, where he falls in with a group of young pickpockets and petty criminals; he is constantly in danger. (Spoiler alert!) Eventually it is revealed that Oliver’s dead father was wealthy, and Oliver inherits a large fortune. For Lyddie, the story of a young person who encounters serious hardships, survives many frightening adventures, and emerges safe and triumphant at the end must have been a comfort.

Reading was a very popular pastime during the nineteenth century, and the young women who worked in the mills had many ways to access reading material: lending libraries allowed them to borrow books for a small fee, bookshops offered books at a variety of price points, peddlers came to the girls’ boarding houses selling books and other trinkets, and most girls shared their books with their roommates and co-workers. Mill girls’ diaries and letters tell us about their reading habits; we know they read all kinds of novels, in addition to non-fiction books (like history and biographies), newspapers, magazines, and lots of poetry.

Describing her life in a letter to the editor, an unknown Lowell factory operative wrote “my chief delight was, after the evening meal, to place my aching feet in any easy position, and read a novel” (Boston Daily Evening Voice, 23 Feb 1867). Reading was a relaxing pastime that provided a form of escape from mill life, even if it was only temporary and imagined. As for which novels they read, some of the girls wrote about their reading habits, so we know that many enjoyed Gothic novels – long novels that were typically set in Europe and featured young heroines who faced frightening villains. Some contemporary critics looked down on such novels and popular so-called “sensation fiction” of the time. They accused these novels (and their authors) of portraying unseemly activities that might lead a young woman to inappropriate behavior. But novels continued to be very popular among working people who were the audience for “cheap” novels that were available to them at low prices that could fit within their budgets. These novels, sometimes called “dime novels” often told stories of working-class characters (like mill girls) and were typically printed on low-quality paper with thin paper covers. It’s notable that Lyddie chooses to purchase an edition of Oliver Twist that is “beautifully bound in leather with gold letters stamped on its spine” (84). She clearly valued the novel, which is a prized possession that brings her much pleasure.

Lowell’s mill girls weren’t just reading novels; several women who worked in Lowell’s mills also wrote and published their own novels. Harriot F. Curtis wrote Kate in Search of a Husband (1843) and serialized one of her novels – The Smugglers – in the Lowell Offering, a magazine that was entirely written and edited by women who worked in Lowell’s mills. Eliza Jane Cate wrote at least four novels, including Lights and Shadows of Factory Life in New England (1848), Martha Tyler wrote A book without a title, or, Thrilling events in the life of Mira Dana (1855-56), and Charlotte S. Hilbourne published five novels that were heavily influenced by popular Gothic and sensation fiction.

About the Author

Dr. Bridget M. Marshall, Professor of English, University of Massachusetts, Lowell and author of Industrial Gothic: Workers, Exploitation and Urbanization in Transatlantic Nineteenth-Century Literature.