Lowell National Historical Park

Massachusetts voted on woman suffrage in 1915 and said no — in Lowell by more than two to one. The parade in the rain, the liquor rumour, and what happened five years later.

In Lyddie, a girl shelters a man escaping slavery who taught himself to read. What the record says about literacy under slavery, freedom inside bondage, and the Quakers who helped.

In Lyddie's farewell chapter, her friend Brigid lives in the Acre. An 1831 newspaper, an 1898 memoir and a historian show what Lowell's Irish settlement was really like.

Uncle Judah and Aunt Clarissa have sent Lyddie’s mother to an asylum because they could no longer care for her. They plan to sell the family farm to pay for her care.

Lyddie soon feels better and returns to work, although she isn’t fully healed. She is determined not to let anything stop her from paying her family's debt.

Lyddie quickly becomes one of the mill’s top workers. She is given more looms to tend and is making more money than ever.

As Lyddie and Charlie are preparing to leave the farm, they decide to sell their young calf. They hope to eventually save enough money to clear the family’s debt and return home.