Lyddie

Charlie Worthen is Lyddie’s 10-year-old brother, and the second eldest child in the family. Charlie is committed to helping Lyddie sustain their farm, having worked as hard as he can to share the workload once their father left. Charlie lives there with her for several months after their mother and sisters have gone, making progress toward improving their home and property. Their efforts are interrupted when they are sent out by their mother to work. Charlie is sent to work in a mill, where he is taken in by his new mentor, Mr. Phinney, and his wife. The Phinneys come to love Charlie and see him as their own, and he settles comfortably into a life where he attends school when he is not apprenticing and never has to worry about food insecurity or losing his home. When their uncle Judah pressures Lyddie and Charlie into selling the farm, Charlie easily lets go of it and does not contest Judah’s usurpation of the proceeds of the sale.

Charlie barely thinks about what it would mean to Lyddie to sell the farm; though she writes him a letter asking him to stop the sale, he doesn’t respond to her. However,  he does see fit to write her a presumptuous letter asking why she hasn’t replied to Luke Stevens’s marriage proposal and urging her to accept the proposal without even asking if she is interested. Lyddie also learns that Charlie has talked about her with Luke without consulting her and that he encouraged Luke to propose. Charlie thinks he is helping Lyddie when he arrives in Lowell to take Rachel back to Vermont with him; he realizes how much work Lyddie has done and how unfair the expectations have been on her, but he is unable to appreciate how insulting it is that he has discussed Rachel’s fate with the Phinneys without speaking to Lyddie or Rachel themselves.

Rachel is the second oldest of the Worthen children, six years old when the novel begins and barely nine when she starts working in a factory. At the Concord Corporation, she signs on as a doffer, which means that she is a kind of runner, ferrying boxes of bobbins filled with freshly spun thread up to the weaving rooms and restocking the looms constantly, as each loom requires a new bobbin approximately every five minutes. After only a short period as a doffer, Rachel begins to show the signs of what is now known as byssinosis, an illness caused by prolonged exposure to the fibers and dust caused by textile production. Rachel’s character allows the author to explore some of the worst abuses of child labor in 19th-century textile factories; it is shocking to modern readers to think of a child this young working in such conditions and not attending school. Rachel’s role in the story also highlights Lyddie’s maternal feelings toward her younger siblings. When Charlie secures a place for Rachel in the Phinney family, Lyddie must finally let go of her dream of reuniting what is left of her family and choose her own path forward.

Diana is an experienced weaver who is patient, generous, and understanding. She is an outspoken activist in the budding labor reform movement who has earned a reputation among her fellow mill workers for being an upstart and, to some, a troublemaker. She does try to recruit for the labor movement, but she doesn’t pressure anyone who does not express interest. She becomes an essential component in Lyddie’s early success as a weaver when she volunteers to help Lyddie learn how to run her loom on Lyddie’s first day at Concord Corporation. She is gentle and kind with Lyddie, performing her own tasks alongside her until Lyddie can work on her own. She is the first person to show true kindness to Lyddie, lending Lyddie paper, envelopes, and postage so that she can write to her family in Vermont. When Lyddie is assigned Brigid as an understudy in the weaving room, Diana steps in and helps with Brigid’s tutelage when she senses that Lyddie is becoming frustrated with Brigid. Diana visits Lyddie after she becomes sick and brings her a book by Charles Dickens about his travels in Lowell. Lyddie notices a distinct change in Diana’s health, and Diana reveals that she is pregnant. Diana is forced to resign from her position at Concord Corporation, not only because she would be dismissed once her condition is discovered, but also because she worries that her situation could open the labor movement to criticism. She leaves her beloved activism in favor of protecting her fellow activists from scandal. She finds a position in a shop in Boston where her pregnancy is not an issue, and when Lyddie visits her, she finds Diana happy in her new circumstances.

Betsy, a young woman from Maine, is one of Lyddie’s four roommates at Number Five, and the one with whom Lyddie develops the closest relationship. Passionate about reading, Betsy is always in the middle of reading a novel, and she is outspoken about her feelings on right and wrong, often sparring with Amelia over some of Amelia’s more rigid opinions on conduct and behavior. Betsy is the last of Lyddie’s roommates to leave Concord Corporation to return home. Betsy started her career with the Concord Corporation as a doffer at 10 years old. Betsy participated in the textile workers strike of 1836, and before she leaves Concord Corporation for good, she signs Diana’s petition to reduce the workday from 13 to 10 hours.

Betsy confides in Lyddie that she dreams of attending Oberlin College in Ohio, which has begun to admit women as students. Most of Betsy’s pay has gone to pay for her brother’s education at Harvard. While rooming with Lyddie at Number Five, Betsy begins to display signs of byssinosis, a respiratory disease developed by textile workers after cumulative exposure to the lint, microscopic fibers, and debris floating around the air. She switches roles and works in the drawing room, setting up the rows of threads that will be used in the weaving room. Her cough does not improve, and she is forced to stop working altogether at the age of 20. Betsy eventually becomes well enough to move to her uncle’s home in Maine but must forgo her dream of attending college. However, her dream has inspired Lyddie to see a future for herself in pursuing an education at Oberlin.

Brigid is a recent émigré from Ireland who lives with her family in the Lowell neighborhood known as The Acre. Brigid is assigned to Lyddie by Mr. Marsden against Lyddie’s wishes, and Lyddie is impatient and frustrated with Brigid’s timidity and lack of aptitude for the factory work. However, Lyddie learns that Brigid is so overcome with fear that her mother is going to die that she is unable to focus on her tasks. It is not until Lyddie gives her the money for a doctor that Brigid’s fears are relieved with her mother’s recovery. Brigid develops a loyalty to Lyddie, even though Lyddie lends her the money mainly out of selfishness.

Brigid is not able to read, but she is eager to learn. Lyddie offers to teach her, beginning with the alphabet and then studying Oliver Twist with her. She becomes a proficient weaver, and unlike Lyddie, she willingly seeks out the opportunity to mentor others. In her approach to these inexperienced peers, Brigid is patient and kind like Diana. Brigid is dismissed after Lyddie finds Mr. Marsden with his hands on Brigid’s arms preparing to assault her. Brigid’s position is saved when Lyddie supplies her with an incriminating account of Mr. Marsden’s behavior to mail to his wife should he not reinstate Brigid and leave her alone.