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A New England Girlhood differs in many respects from other autobiographies published in nineteenth century American literature. Larcom does not present, but rather conceals, the autobiographical specifics of her life in her autobiography. Traditionally, autobiography presents a unified self piecing together important moments from the writer’s life in accordance with a teleological intention, covering ruptures and cracks; this approach is especially characteristic of men’s autobiography. On the other hand, Larcom’s autobiography is a woman’s autobiography in the sense that it presents not stories of her life, but fragments and images related to it. More importantly, A New England Girlhood is a woman’s autobiography because it promotes new ideas about womanhood, which Larcom learned mainly from fellow workers at a mill factory in Lowell, Massachusetts. Adopting a new autobiographical approach through the form of gossip shared by one woman with others, she relates how she has found new ideals of womanhood and made efforts to live up to them.