Lyddie: Chapter 22 - Farewell

St. Patrick's Church in the Acre, Lowell. Sketch of Lowell’s Acre neighborhood where Brigid lived.

The Irish Came to Lowell: Journalists' observations of the 19th century — Irish in Lowell, Massachusetts Leo Panas & Anne Quinn-Panas, 1985

Lyddie wants to understand why she was fired from the mills, so she purchases a dictionary and looks up “turpitude.” Enraged, she hurries back to the boardinghouse to write two letters, one to Mr. Marsden and one to his wife.The second is to be mailed if the first does not prevent Brigid from being fired. Then, Lyddie goes to the Acre to tell Brigid what happened and to give her the letter for Mrs. Marsden, as well as some gifts: the primer and Oliver Twist. Satisfied that Brigid will be okay, Lyddie says farewell.

When the mill closes, Lyddie walks to the overseer’s home to complete her mission. When Mr. Marsden finally arrives, Lyddie corners him and shoves the letter she wrote into his hands. The letter says that if he tries to have Brigid fired, she will tell his wife everything that happened.

Lyddie then leaves for Boston, to see Diana. Her friend is very happy to see Lyddie again. Lyddie wants to help, but Diana assures her that she is doing just fine. With no reason or means to stay, Lyddie heads home to Vermont.

Fact Check: The Acre

Brigid lives in an Irish immigrant neighborhood called the Acre. Was that neighborhood a real place?

What do we know?

During the 1840s, Irish immigrants poured into the city to escape the Great Hunger in Ireland. The first Irish immigrants had arrived in Lowell in the 1820s, and a parish was eventually established in a small area of land called the Acre. As more people arrived with few financial resources, the Acre became crowded and noisy, with animals running wild in the streets. Hostility toward and fear of Catholics and foreigners led to the intentional separation between the Acre and other more prosperous parts of Lowell, including the mills’ boarding houses. The Acre and St. Patrick’s Church remain a hub for new waves of immigrants today, with mass at St. Patrick’s is currently said in three languages.

What is the evidence?

Primary Source:

Portsmouth Journal. Reprinted in the Niles Register, Baltimore, August 27, 1831. Page 4.

In the suburbs of Lowell… is a settlement, called by some, New Dublin, which occupies rather more than an acre of ground. It contains a population of not far from 500 Irish, who dwell in about 100 cabins, from 7 to 10 feet in height, built of slabs and rough boards; a fire-place made of stone, in one end, topped out with two or three flour barrels or lime casks. In a central situation, is the school house, built in the same style of the dwelling-houses… with a window in one end, and small holes in two sides for the admission of air and light. In this room are collected together perhaps 150 children.

Portsmouth Journal. Reprinted in the Niles Register, Baltimore, August 27, 1831. Page 4.

Primary Source:

In 1832 the factory population of Lowell was divided into four classes…

The fourth class, lords of the spade and the shovel, by whose constant labor the building of the great factories was made possible, and whose children soon became valuable operatives, lived at first on what was called the “Acre,”… Here, clustered around a small stone Catholic Church, were hundreds of little shanties, in which they dwelt with their wives and numerous children. Among them were sometimes found disorder and riot, for they had brought with them from the [old country] their feuds and quarrels…

Robinson, Harriet Hanson, Loom and Spindle, Press Pacifica, Kailua 1898.

Secondary Source:

“From their arrival in 1822 until well after the Civil War, the Irish constituted the single largest ethnic group in the city. For most of those years the existence of the Irish in the city caused great consternation [anxiety] among the Yankee population…There are numerous examples of blatant Yankee hostility toward the Irish. The most extreme and possibly the most violent was the 1831 Yankee attack on the Acre and the newly constructed and still undedicated St. Patrick's Irish Catholic Church.”

Marston, Sallie A. “Neighborhood and Politics: Irish Ethnicity in Nineteenth Century Lowell, Massachusetts.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 78, no. 3 (1988): 414–32.http://www.jstor.org/stable/2563748.

Photos & Multimedia

Bird's eye view of Boston 1850. Lyddie visits Diana in Boston and has trouble making her way in the winding, twisting streets. Photograph. Bachmann, John, fl. 1849-1885. "Bird's eye view of Boston." Map. New York: Williams & Stevens, 1850. Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:9g54xk528.

See it yourself

Learn more about the neighborhood known as The Acre: https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/the-acre.htm

Writing Prompts

Opinion

Why do you think Lyddie finally got up the courage to confront Mr. Marsden about his behavior?

Informative/explanatory

How does Lyddie use the metaphor of the bear “winning” to explain her situation in chapter 22?

Narrative

Lyddie returns to Vermont at the end of the chapter and notes how the air was clean and the sky was blue. Write a descriptive paragraph about your home or favorite place to be. Use descriptive details and all of your senses to describe the scene.