A Beverly, Massachusetts native, she was born on March 5, 1824. Lucy left Beverly in 1835 to work in the cotton mills in Lowell, Massachusetts from the ages of 11 to 21. As a mill girl she hoped to earn some extra money for her family. While working at the mills in Lowell, Lucy made a huge impact. She wrote and published many of her songs, poems, and letters describing her life at the mills. Her idealistic poems caught the attention of John Greenleaf Whittier. Lucy served as a model for the change in women's roles in society.

Larcom has penned one of the best accounts of New England childhood of her time, A New England Girlhood, commonly used as a reference in studying early American childhood.

Larcom's influence is still felt in her hometown of Beverly. A local literary magazine is entitled, The Larcom Review and one of the town's elementary schools is named for her.