Introduction

Abstract of Thesis in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies

December, 2023

 

 Getting By in Biddeford: Lizzie Littlefield, Dennis Delany and Wun Lung

1888-1932

This is a story of three different people working and living in Biddeford in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Lizzie Littlefield worked in the textile mills and at age 47 decided to start a diary. 

Dennis Delany worked at various jobs as a baker, restaurant worker and laborer. His other “occupations” were smuggling, arranging illegal boxing matches and dog fights.  Wun Lung struggled with discrimination and harassment in a city already becoming intolerant of immigrants.  And through it all the local newspaper the Biddeford Daily Journal kept its readers informed about Delany’s doings and all the while ridiculing the Chinese businessman in print which culminated in a confrontation with Delany. 

Lizzie Littlefield was not a newsworthy feature in the Journal but her diary is important because it reflects the hardships of a young woman experiencing loss, betrayal and the difficulties as a woman to obtain a divorce at this time.  Her religious conversion as an Adventist is an example of the resurgence of a Second Great Awakening but coupled with conservative and ideological reform movements that demanded society be reordered according to Christian principles. At the same time organizations such as the Know Nothings followed these ideals and became predominant in anti-immigration sentiment and a backlash against people like Wun Lung. 

This project will examine a city whose landscape changed starting in 1830 with the first textile mill which attracted many people from other countries to find a job and better lives. The mills were the catalyst for change and influenced young girls like Lizzie Littlefield at fourteen to become independent and earn their own money. A steady salary and job security attracted French-Canadians, Irish, Greek, Italians, Albanians leaving their conflict torn countries to find jobs and better lives. Biddeford became a multi-ethnic city and still retains the different ethnic character that made it what it was and is today. 

There are few primary sources but newspapers of the time period were very informative. Part of Lizzie Littlefield’s diary was transcribed and a photographic image of her in her later years when she started the diary was found in the archives of the McArthur Library in Biddeford. Dennis Delany is reported by the Journal so information about him was gleaned from them. Wun Lung’s harassment not only with Delany but with boys who threw a dead rat into his laundry. The Biddeford Daily Journal reported on the incident not without some sarcasm. 

Other sources include a paper by Gary Libby who wrote about the early Chinese immigrants of Biddeford, where their businesses were located and where they lived. Secondary sources are reference books about the Chinese Exclusion Act, immigration, history of Biddeford and a reproduction of the Lowell Offering, a compendium of essays and poems by mill girls of Lowell. 

Included are images of the Know-Nothings manual and a photograph of “The Rough and Readies”, a Know-Nothing gang in uniform of Ellsworth, Maine from James Mundy’s book hard times, hard men about the Irish in Maine. 

I chose these three because there isn’t much about them. They do not stand out but in a sense they do with Lizzie’s diary, Delany breaking the law and Wun Lung trying to make it in the business world.  This project will also seek to understand the connection between them and their importance in the time period that they lived in.