Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott | |
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Born | Germantown, Pennsylvania U.S. | November 29, 1832
Died | March 6, 1888 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | (aged 55)
Resting place | Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Pen name | A. M. Barnard |
Occupation | Novelist |
Period | American Civil War |
Genre |
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Subject | Young adult fiction |
Signature | |
Louisa May Alcott (/ˈɔːlkət, -kɒt/; November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to achieve critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House of Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for film and television many times.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.
Early life[edit]
Birth and early childhood[edit]
Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown,[1] now part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her parents were transcendentalist and educator Amos Bronson Alcott and social worker Abigail "Abba" May.[2] She was the second of four daughters, with Anna as the oldest and Elizabeth and May as the youngest.[3] Louisa May Alcott was named after Abba's sister, Louisa May Greele, who had died four years previously.[4] After Alcott's birth, Bronson kept a record of her development, noting her strong will,[5] which she inherited from her mother's May side of the family.[6] He described her as "fit for the scuffle of things".[7]
Alcott kept a journal at as early as six-years-old. Bronson and Abba often read it and left short messages for her on her pillow, encouraging her to be well-behaved.[8] Alcott often felt like she was not a well-behaved child.[9] Alcott was a tomboy who preferred boys' games[10] and preferred to be friends with boys or other tomboys. [11]She wanted to play football with the boys at school but was not allowed to.[12]
The family moved to Boston in 1834,[13] where Alcott's father established the experimental Temple School[14] and met with other transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.[15] Bronson participated in child-care but often failed to provide income, creating conflict in the family.[16] At home and in school he taught morals and improvement, while Abba emphasized imagination and supported Alcott's writing at home.[17] Bronson occasionally brought Alcott and her older sister Anna to the school and used them as examples in his moral lessons.[18] Alcott was often tended by her father's friend Elizabeth Peabody,[19] but once she was three years-old she frequently visited Temple School during the day.[20]
Hosmer Cottage[edit]
External videos | |
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Tour of Orchard House, June 19, 2017, C-SPAN |
In 1840, after several setbacks with Temple School and a brief stay in Scituate, Massachusetts,[21] the Alcotts moved to Hosmer Cottage in Concord, Massachusetts.[22] Emerson, who had convinced Bronson to move his family to Concord, paid the Alcotts' rent.[23] The family was often in need of financial help.[24] While living there, Alcott and her sisters befriended the Hosmer, Goodwin, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Channing children, who lived nearby.[25] The Hosmer and Alcott children put on plays and often included other children.[26] Alcott and Anna also attended school with other children.[27] In October 1842 Bronson brought Charles Lane and Henry Wright from his five-month-long tour in England.[28] They were to live with the Alcotts at Hillside while Bronson and Lane made plans to establish a "New Eden".[29] The children's education was undertaken by Lane, who implemented a schedule that allowed little time for play. Young Alcott disliked Lane, who tried to exact obedience from her, and found the new living arrangements difficult.[30]
Fruitlands[edit]
In 1843 the Alcotts moved to Fruitlands in Harvard, Massachusetts, which was a utopian community started by Alcott's father and Charles Lane.[31] She later described these early years in a newspaper sketch entitled "Transcendental Wild Oats." The sketch was reprinted in the volume Silver Pitchers (1876), which relates the family's experiment in "plain living and high thinking" at Fruitlands.[32] Alcott disliked the schooling she received in the community.[33] The children were given notebooks to write creatively, and Alcott found happiness in writing poetry about her family, elves, and spirits.[34] She also enjoyed playing with Charles Lane's son William and often put on fairy tale plays or performances of Dickens's stories.[35] During the demise of Fruitlands, the Alcotts discussed whether or not the family should separate. Alcott recorded this in her journal and expressed her unhappiness should they separate.[36] During Bronson's nervous breakdown following the collapse of Fruitlands, Alcott decided to support her mother financially and emotionally.[37]
Hillside[edit]
After the collapse of Fruitlands in early 1844, the family rented rooms in Still River,[38] where Alcott attended public school and wrote and directed plays that her sisters and friends performed.[39] In April 1845 the family used Abba's inheritance to buy a home in Concord they called Hillside.[40] Here, Alcott and her sister Anna attended a school run by John Hosmer after a period of home education.[41] The family lived close to the Emersons, and Alcott was granted open access to the Emerson library, where she read Carlyle, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe.[42] In the summer of 1848 Alcott opened a school of twenty students in a barn near Hillside. Her students consisted of the Emerson, Channing, and Alcott children.[43] Alcott and Anna continued acting in plays written by Alcott herself. While Anna preferred portraying calm characters, Alcott preferred the roles of villians, knights, and sorcerers. These plays later inspired Alcott's Comic Tragedies (1893).[44] The family struggled without income beyond the girls' sewing and teaching. Eventually, some friends arranged a job for Abba[45] and three years after moving into Hillside, the family moved to Boston. Hillside was sold to Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1852.[46] Louisa described the three years she spent at Concord as a child as the "happiest of her life."[47]
Education[edit]
Alcott was primarily educated by her father, who established a strict schedule and believed in "the sweetness of self-denial."[48] She was also instructed by naturalist Henry David Thoreau, as well as Sophia Foord, who lived with the family for a time, and whom she would later eulogize.[49] She also grew up around writers and educators such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and Julia Ward Howe, all of whom were family friends. Alcott had a particular fondness for Thoreau and Emerson; as a young girl, they were both "sources of romantic fantasies for her."[50]
Teenage years[edit]
When the Alcott family moved to South End, Boston in 1848,[51] poverty made it necessary for Alcott to go to work at an early age as a teacher, seamstress, governess, domestic helper, and laundress.[52] Alcott disliked teaching.[53] Her sisters also supported the family by working as seamstresses, while their mother took on social work among the Irish immigrants. Only the youngest, Abigail, was able to attend public school. Due to all of these pressures, writing became a creative and emotional outlet for Alcott.[54] In 1849 she created a family newspaper, the Olive Leaf, named after the local Olive Branch. Alcott's newspaper included stories, poems, articles, and housekeeping advice.[55] It was later renamed to The Portfolio.[56] She also wrote her first novel, The Inheritance, which was published posthumously and based on Jane Eyre.[57] Alcott, who was driven in life not to be poor, wrote, "I wish I was rich, I was good, and we were all a happy family this day."[58]
Early adulthood[edit]
Life in Dedham[edit]
Abba ran an "intelligence office" to help the destitute find employment.[59] When James Richardson came to Abba in the winter of 1851 seeking a companion for his frail sister who could also help out with some light housekeeping, Alcott volunteered to serve in the house filled with books, music, artwork, and good company on Highland Avenue.[60] Alcott may have imagined the experience as something akin to being a heroine in a Gothic novel, as Richardson described their home in a letter as stately but decrepit.[60]
Richardson's sister, Elizabeth, was 40 years old and suffered from neuralgia.[61] She was shy and did not seem to have much use for Alcott.[60] Instead, Richardson spent hours reading her poetry and treating her like his confidant and companion, sharing his personal thoughts and feelings with her.[60] Alcott reminded Richardson that she was supposed to be Elizabeth's companion, not his, and she was tired of listening to his "philosophical, metaphysical, and sentimental rubbish."[60] He responded by assigning her more laborious duties, including chopping wood, scrubbing the floors, shoveling snow, drawing water from the well, washing dishes, and blacking Richardson's boots.[62]
Alcott quit after seven weeks, when neither of the two girls her mother sent to replace her decided to take the job.[60] As she walked from Richardson's home to Dedham station, she opened the envelope he handed her with her pay.[60] One account states that she was so unsatisfied with the four dollars she found inside that she mailed the money back to him in contempt.[60] Another account states that Bronson may have returned the money himself and rebuked Richardson.[63] She later wrote a slightly fictionalized account of her time in Dedham titled How I went into service, which she submitted to Boston publisher James T. Fields.[64] He rejected the piece, telling Alcott that she had no future as a writer.[64]
Early publications[edit]
In September 1851 Alcott's poem "Sunlight" appeared in Peterson's Magazine under the name Flora Fairchild, making it Alcott's first successful publication.[65] In 1854 she attended The Boston Theatre, where she was given a pass to attend free of charge.[66] She published her first book, Flower Fables, in 1854; the book was a selection of tales she originally told to Ellen Emerson, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson.[67] Lidian Emerson had read the stories and encouraged Alcott to publish them.[68] Alcott hoped to eventually shift her writing "from fairies and fables to men and realities".[69] Alcott also wrote The Rival Prima Donnas, a play adaptation of her story with the same title.[70]
In 1855 the Alcotts moved to Walpole, New Hampshire,[71] where Alcott and Anna participated in the Walpole Amateur Dramatic Company. Alcott was praised for her "superior histrionic ability".[72] At the end of the theater season, Alcott, encouraged by the success of Flower Fables, began writing Christmas Elves, a collection of Christmas stories illustrated by May Alcott. In November Alcott traveled to Boston and attempted to publish the collection while living with a relative. November was too late in the year to publish Christmas books and Alcott was unable to publish The Christmas Elves.[73] She then wrote and published "The Sisters' Trial", a story about four women who were based on the Alcott sisters.[74]
Family changes[edit]
Alcott returned to Walpole in mid-1856 to find her sister Elizabeth ill with scarlet fever. Louisa helped nurse Elizabeth, and when she was not nursing helped with the housekeeping and wrote.[75] Alcott prepared to publish Beach Bubbles that year, but the book was rejected.[76] By the end of the year she was writing for the Olive Branch, the Ladies Enterprise, The Saturday Evening Gazette, and the Sunday News.[77] Alcott again lived in Boston for a time, where she met Julia Ward Howe and Frank Sanborn.[78] In the summer of 1857 Alcott and Anna rejoined the Walpole Amateur Dramatic Company and sought to entertain Elizabeth with stories about their acting.[79] The family later visited Swampscott in an effort to boost Elizabeth's health, which was poor from effects of the scarlet fever, but it did not improve.[80]
The family moved back to Concord in September 1857, where the Alcotts rented while Bronson repaired Orchard House.[81] During that time, the two oldest Alcott sisters organized the Concord Dramatic Union.[82] Elizabeth died in March 1858,[83] and three weeks after her death Anna became engaged to John Pratt, a man she met in the Concord Dramatic Union.[84] Alcott experienced depression about these events and considered Elizabeth's death and Anna's engagement catalysts to breaking up their sisterhood.[85] When the family moved into Orchard House in July 1858, Alcott again returned to Boston to find work. Unable to find work and filled with despair, Alcott contemplated suicide by drowning, but decided to "take Fate by the throat and shake a living out of her."[86] Alcott had read The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell the year before and found many parallels between Charlotte Brontë's life and her own, which inspired her.[87] Alcott eventually received an offer to work as a governess for invalid Alice Lovering, which she accepted.[88]
Literary success[edit]
Hospital Sketches[edit]
As an adult, Alcott was an abolitionist, temperance advocate, and feminist.[89] In 1860, Alcott began writing for the Atlantic Monthly. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Alcott wanted to enlist in the Union army but could not because she was a woman. Instead, she sewed uniforms and waited until she reached the minimum age for army nurses at thirty years old.[90] Soon after turning thirty in 1862, Alcott applied to the U. S. Sanitary Commission, run by Dorothea Dix, and on December 11 was assigned to work in the Union Hotel Hospital in Georgetown, Washington, D. C.[91] Conditions in the hospital were poor, with over-crowded and filthy quarters, bad meat for meals, unstable beds, and insufficient ventilation.[92] Alcott's duties included cleaning wounds, feeding the men, assisting with amputations, and later assigning the men to their wards.[93] She also entertained the wounded men by reading aloud and putting on skits.[94] She served as a nurse for six weeks in 1862–1863.[95] She intended to serve three months,[96] but contracted typhoid fever and became critically ill partway through her service.[97] In late January Bronson traveled to the hospital and took Alcott to Concord to recover.[98]
The letters Alcott wrote while serving as a nurse were revised and published in the Boston anti-slavery paper Commonwealth and collected as Hospital Sketches (1863, republished with additions in 1869).[99] She wrote about the mismanagement of hospitals, the indifference and callousness of some of the surgeons she encountered, and her passion for seeing the war firsthand.[100] Her main character, Tribulation Periwinkle, shows a passage from innocence to maturity and is a "serious and eloquent witness".[54] The stories brought her first critical recognition for her observations and humor, and their popularity surprised Alcott.[101] With the popularity of Hospital Sketches, Alcott began publishing versions of some of her letters from a trip she took the year before, but she felt ashamed of them and stopped.[102]
Moods[edit]
Soon after the success of Hospital Sketches, Alcott published her novel Moods (1864), based on her own experience with and stance on "woman's right to selfhood."[103] Alcott struggled to find a publisher because the novel was long.[104] After abridgments, Moods was published and popular,[105] but not as much as Alcott had hoped for.[106] The plot follows a young woman named Sylvia Yule who, through a misunderstanding, marries the friend of the man she loves. When she realizes she cannot offer love to both men, she leaves to live with her father and eventually dies as punishment for her hasty actions.[107] In 1882 Alcott changed the end, having Sylvia reconcile herself to her marriage and return to her husband.[108] While Alcott was touring Europe in 1870, she was displeased to find out that her publisher released a new edition without her approval.[109]
Little Women books[edit]
Little Women and Good Wives[edit]
Alcott began editing the children's magazine Merry's Museum to help pay off family debts[110] incurred while Alcott toured Europe as the companion of wealthy invalid Anna Weld in 1865-66.[111] Though Alcott disliked editing the magazine,[112] she became the main editor in 1867.[113] Around the same time,[114] Alcott's publisher, Thomas Niles, asked her to write a book especially for girls.[115] Alcott was hesitant to write it because she felt she knew more about boys than she did about girls.[116] Alcott set to work on her semi-autobiographical novel Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868), completing it in two months after writing for several hours a day.[117]
In Little Women, Alcott based the heroine Jo on herself.[118] Alcott developed a close relationship with the young Polish revolutionary[119] Ladislas "Laddie" Wisniewski during her European tour with Weld.[120] She detailed a romance between herself and Wisniewski but later took it out.[121] Alcott identified Wisniewski as one of the models for the character Laurie in Little Women.[122] The other characters have parallels with people from Alcott's life[123]—from Beth's death mirroring Elizabeth's to Jo's rivalry with Amy mirroring Alcott's own rivalry with her sister May.[124]
Niles predicted Little Women might not sell well because he found it uninteresting.[125] However, it was well-received, with critics and audiences finding it to be a fresh, natural representation of daily life suitable for many age groups. An Eclectic Magazine reviewer called it "the very best of books to reach the hearts of the young of any age from six to sixty".[126] With the success of Little Women, Alcott shied away from public attention and would sometimes act as a servant when fans came to her house.[127] Niles asked Alcott to write a second part.[128] Also known as Good Wives (1869), it follows the March sisters into adulthood and marriage.[129] The book enjoyed equal popularity with Little Women.[130]
Little Men and Jo's Boys[edit]
In 1870 Alcott joined May and a friend on a European tour. Alcott wrote little while in Europe, instead preferring to rest, and rumors began to spread that she had died from diphtheria.[131] Later, Alcott began writing Little Men while in Europe after finding out that her brother-in-law, John Pratt, had died. Alcott was driven to write the book to provide financial support for Anna and her two sons, though Pratt left them money when he died.[132] After she left Europe, the book was released the day she arrived in Boston.[133] Little Men details life at the Plumfield School that Jo and Professor Bhaer have opened, which is an idealized version of Fruitlands. Jo and Professor Bhaer offer discipline and kindness to the boys and girls at Plumfield.[134] While the character Daisy is based on Anna, Dan and Nan have parallels with Alcott.[135]
Alcott took seven years to complete Jo's Boys (1886), her sequel to Little Men.[136] She began the book in 1879 but discontinued it after her sister May's death in December. Alcott resumed work on the novel in 1882 after Mary Mapes Dodge of St. Nicholas asked for a new serial.[137] In the book, the children from Little Men are grown up and building their lives, while Jo reflects on her life choices.[138] Alcott apologized in the preface for what she felt was low-quality writing, the result of multiple interruptions in its composition;[139] some reviewers considered the plot "haphazard".[140] Jo's Boys (1886) completed the "March Family Saga", Alcott's best-known books.[141]
Sensation stories[edit]
Between 1863 and 1872, Alcott anonymously wrote at least thirty-three gothic thrillers for popular magazines and papers such as The Flag of Our Union; they were rediscovered in 1975.[142] In the mid-1860s she wrote passionate, fiery novels and sensation stories akin to those of English authors Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon under the nom de plume A. M. Barnard. Other pen names she used include Aunt Weedy, Flora Fairfield, Oranthy Bluggage, and Minerva Moody. Among these sensation stories are A Long Fatal Love Chase and Pauline's Passion and Punishment.[143] Catherine Ross Nickerson credits Alcott with creating one of the earliest works of detective fiction in American literature, preceded only by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and his other Auguste Dupin stories, with the 1865 thriller "V.V., or Plots and Counterplots." Alcott published the story anonymously and it concerns a Scottish aristocrat who tries to prove that a mysterious woman has killed his fiancée and cousin. The detective on the case, Antoine Dupres, is a parody of Poe's Dupin who is less concerned with solving the crime than in setting up a way to reveal the solution with a dramatic flourish.[144]
Work: A Story of Experience[edit]
Alcott's novel Work: A Story of Experience (1873) is semi-autobiographical[145] and Alcott's last adult novel.[146] The novel's young heroine, Christie Devon, strikes out on her own and takes various jobs to support herself. She befriends a destitute woman, and they comfort each other in times of despair. Christie falls in love with a man who is based on Thoreau. Shortly after they marry, he dies in the American Civil War, and Christie is left to be a single mother.[147] Though Work received positive contemporary reviews,[148] Alcott felt unsatisfied with the finished product because she felt that interruptions during the writing process weakened its quality.[149]
Later years[edit]
Lulu Nieriker[edit]
Alcott nursed Abba, who was dying, in 1877 while writing Under the Lilacs (1878).[150] Alcott also became ill and close to dying, so the two women moved in with Anna, who had recently purchased Thoreau's house with Alcott's financial support.[151] After Abba's death in November,[152] Alcott and Bronson permanently moved into Anna's house.[153] Having had a strained relationship with her father in the past, Alcott found solace through their shared grief.[154] Alcott's sister May was living in London at the time and married Ernest Nieriker a few months later.[155] May became pregnant and was due to deliver her child near the end of 1879. Though Alcott wanted to travel to Paris to see May in time for the delivery, she decided against it because her health was poor.[156] On December 29 May died from complications developed after childbirth, and in September 1880 Alcott assumed the care of her niece, Lulu, who was named after her.[157] During the grief that followed May's death, Alcott and her father Bronson coped by writing poetry.[158] In a letter to her friend Maria S. Porter, Alcott wrote, "Of all the griefs in my life, and I have had many, this is the bitterest."[159] It was at this time that she completed Jack and Jill: A Village Story (1880).[160]
Alcott sometimes hired a nanny when her poor health made it difficult to care for Lulu.[161] While raising Lulu, Alcott published few works.[108] When Bronson suffered a stroke in 1882, Alcott became his caretaker.[162] Overwhelmed with taking care of her father and niece, she alternated between living in Concord and living in Boston.[163] In June 1884 Alcott sold Orchard House, which the family was no longer living in.[164]
Decline and death[edit]
Alcott suffered from chronic health problems in her later years,[165] including vertigo, dyspepsia, headaches, fatigue, and pain in the limbs,[166] diagnosed as neuralgia in her lifetime.[167] When conventional medicines did not alleviate her pain, she tried mind-cure treatments, homeopathy, hypnotism, and Christian Science.[168] Her ill health has been attributed to mercury poisoning, morphine intake, intestinal cancer, or meningitis.[169] Alcott herself cited mercury poisoning as the cause of her sickness.[170] When she contracted typhoid fever during her American Civil War service, she was treated with calomel, which is a compound containing mercury.[171] Dr. Norbert Hirschhorn and Dr. Ian Greaves suggest that Alcott's chronic health problems may have been associated with an autoimmune disease such as systemic lupus erythematosus, possibly because mercury exposure compromised her immune system.[172] An 1870 portrait of Alcott shows her cheeks to be flushed, perhaps with the butterfly rash that is often characteristic of lupus.[173] The suggested diagnosis, based on Alcott's journal entries, cannot be proved.[174]
As Alcott's health declined, she often lived at Dunreath Place, a convalescent home run by Dr. Rhoda Lawrence for which Alcott had provided financial support in the past.[175] Eventually a doctor advised Alcott to stop writing in order to preserve her health.[176] In 1887 Alcott legally adopted Anna's son, John Pratt, as her heir, then created a will that left her money to her remaining family.[177] Alcott visited Bronson at his deathbed on March 1, 1888, and expressed the wish that she could join him in death.[178] On March 3, the day before her father died,[179] she suffered a stroke and went unconscious, in which state she remained[180] until her death on March 6, 1888.[181] She was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, near Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, on a hillside now known as Authors' Ridge.[182] Her niece Lulu was eight years old when Alcott died and was cared for by Anna Alcott Pratt before reuniting with her father in Europe.[183]
Social involvement[edit]
Abolition[edit]
When Alcott was young, her family served as station masters on the Underground Railroad, when they housed fugitive slaves.[184] Alcott herself was unable to dictate when she first became an abolitionist, suggesting that she became an abolitionist either when William Lloyd Garrison was attacked or when a young African-American boy saved her from drowning in Frog Pond. Both events occurred when Alcott was a child.[185] Alcott formed her abolitionist ideas, in part, from listening to conversations between her father and uncle Sam May or between her father and Emerson.[186] She was also inspired by the abolitionism of Rev. Theodore Parker, Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, and William Lloyd Garrison, with whom she was acquainted while living in Boston as an adult.[187] Alcott also knew Frederick Douglass in adulthood.[184] As a young woman Alcott joined her family in teaching African-Americans how to read and write.[188] When John Brown was executed on December 2, 1859, for his involvement in anti-slavery, Alcott described it as "the execution of Saint John the Just".[189] Alcott attended several abolitionist rallies, including a rally at Tremont Temple that advocated for Thomas Simm's freedom.[190] Alcott also believed in the full integration of African-Americans into society.[191]
Women's rights[edit]
After Abba's death, Alcott committed to following her mother's example by actively advocating for women's suffrage.[192] In 1877, Alcott helped found the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston.[193] Alcott read and admired the Declaration of Sentiments published by the Seneca Falls Convention on women's rights, advocated for women's suffrage, and became the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts in a school board election on March 9, 1879.[194] She encouraged other Concord women to vote and was disappointed when few did.[195] Alcott attended the Woman's Congress in 1875 and became a member of the National Congress of the Women of the United States,[196] later recounting it in "My Girls".[197] She gave speeches advocating women's rights and eventually convinced her publisher Thomas Niles to publish suffragist writings.[198] Along with Elizabeth Stoddard, Rebecca Harding Davis, Anne Moncure Crane, and others, Alcott was part of a group of female authors during the Gilded Age who addressed women's issues in a modern and candid manner. Their works were, as one newspaper columnist of the period commented, "among the decided 'signs of the times'".[199] She also joined Sorosis, where members discussed health and dress reform for women,[200] and she helped found Concord's first Temperance Society.[201] Between 1874 and 1887 many of Alcott's works, published in the Woman's Journal, discussed women's suffrage.[202] Her essay "Happy Women" argued that women did not need to marry.[203] She explained her spinsterhood in an interview with Louise Chandler Moulton, saying "I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body.... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.”[204] She advocated for dress and diet reform[205] as well as for women to receive college education.[206] She often signed her letters with "Yours for reform of all kinds".[207] After her death, Alcott was memorialized during a suffragist meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio.[205]
Legacy[edit]
Biography and documentary[edit]
Before her death, Alcott asked her sister Anna Pratt to destroy her letters and journals; Anna did not destroy all of them and gave the rest to family friend Ednah Dow Cheney.[208] In 1889 Cheney was the first person to undergo a deep study of Alcott's life, compiling the journals and letters to publish Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals. The compilation has been published multiple times since then.[209] Cheney also published Louisa May Alcott: The Children's Friend, a version of the first compilation revised to focus on Alcott's appeal to children.[208] Other various compilations of Alcott's letters were published in the following decades.[210] In 1909 Belle Moses wrote Louisa May Alcott, Dreamer and Worker: A Study of Achievement, which established itself as the "first major biography" about Alcott.[211] Katharine S. Anthony's Louisa May Alcott, written in 1938, was the first biography to focus on the author's psychology.[212] A comprehensive biography about Alcott was not written until Madeleine B. Stern's 1950 biography Louisa May Alcott.[213] In the 1960s-1970s, feminist analysis of Alcott's fiction increased; analysis also focused on the contrast between her domestic and sensation fiction.[214]
"Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind 'Little Women'" aired in 2009 as part of the American Masters biography series and was aired a second time on May 20, 2018.[215] It was directed by Nancy Porter and written by Harriet Reisen, who wrote the script based on primary sources from Alcott's life.[216] The documentary, which starred Elizabeth Marvel as Alcott, was shot onsite for the events it covered. It included interviews with Alcott scholars, including Sarah Elbert, Daniel Shealy, Madeleine Stern, Leona Rostenberg, and Geraldine Brooks.[215]
Alcott homes[edit]
The Alcotts' Concord home, Orchard House, where the family lived for 25 years[217] and where Little Women was written, is open to the public and pays homage to the Alcotts by focusing on public education and historic preservation.[218] The Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association allows tourists to walk through the house and learn about Alcott.[219] Her Boston home is featured on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.[115]
Film and television[edit]
Little Women inspired film versions in 1933, 1949, 1994, 2018, and 2019. The novel also inspired television series in 1958, 1970, 1978, and 2017, anime versions in 1981 and 1987, and a 2005 musical. It also inspired a BBC Radio 4 version in 2017.[220] Little Men inspired film versions in 1934, 1940, and 1998, and was the basis for a 1998 television series.[221] Other films based on Alcott novels and stories are An Old-Fashioned Girl (1949),[222] The Inheritance (1997),[223] and An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving (2008).[224]
Influence[edit]
Various modern writers have been influenced and inspired by Alcott's work, particularly Little Women. As a child, Simone de Beauvior felt a connection to Jo and expressed, "Reading this novel gave me an exalted sense of myself.[225] Cynthia Ozick calls herself a "Jo-of-the-future", and Patti Smith explains, "[I]t was Louisa May Alcott who provided me with a positive view of my female destiny."[225] Writers influenced by Alcott include Ursula K. Le Guin, Barbara Kingsolver, Gail Mazur, Anna Quindlen, Anne Lamott, Sonia Sanchez, Ann Petry, Gertrude Stein, and J. K. Rowling.[226] U. S. president Theodore Roosevelt said he "worshiped" Alcott's books. Other politicians who have been impacted by Alcott's books include Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Hillary Clinton, and Sandra Day O'Connor.[227] Louisa May Alcott was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.[228]
Selected works[edit]
The Little Women series[edit]
- Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868)
- Second Part of Little Women, or Good Wives, published in 1869 and afterward published together with Little Women.
- Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys (1871)
- Jo's Boys and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to "Little Men" (1886)
Novels[edit]
- The Inheritance (1849, unpublished until 1997)
- Moods (1865, revised 1882)
- An Old Fashioned Girl (1870)
- Will's Wonder Book (1870)
- Work: A Story of Experience (1873)
- Beginning Again, Being a Continuation of Work (1875)
- Eight Cousins, or The Aunt Hill (1875)
- Rose in Bloom: A Sequel to Eight Cousins (1876)
- Under the Lilacs (1878)
- Jack and Jill: A Village Story (1880)
- Diana and Persis (1978, posthumous; incomplete manuscript)
As A. M. Barnard[edit]
- Behind a Mask, or a Woman's Power (1866)
- The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation (1867)
- A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866; first published 1995)
Published anonymously[edit]
- A Modern Mephistopheles (1877)
Short story collections[edit]
- Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag (1872–1882). (66 short stories in six volumes)
- 1. "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag"
- 2. "Shawl-Straps"
- 3. "Cupid and Chow-Chow"
- 4. "My Girls, Etc."
- 5. "Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc."
- 6. "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc."
- Lulu's Library (1886–1889) A collection of 32 short stories in three volumes.
- Flower Fables (1854)
- On Picket Duty, and other tales (1864)
- Morning-Glories and Other Stories (1867) Eight fantasy stories and four poems for children, including "A Strange Island", "The Rose Family", "A Christmas Song", "Morning-Glories", "Shadow-Children", "Poppy's Pranks", "What the Swallows Did", "Little Gulliver", "The Whale's Story", "Goldfin and Silvertail".
- Kitty's Class Day and Other Stories (Three Proverb Stories), 1868, (includes "Kitty's Class Day", "Aunt Kipp" and "Psyche's Art")
- Proverb Stories (1882)
- Spinning-Wheel Stories (1884). A collection of 12 short stories.
- A Garland for Girls (1887). A collection of seven short stories, including "May Flowers", "An Ivy Spray and Ladies' Slippers", "Pansies", "Water-Lilies", "Poppies and Wheat", "Little Button-Rose", and "Mountain-Laurel and Maidenhair".
- Morning-Glories and Queen Aster (1904) Two short stories.
- The Brownie and the Princess (2004). A collection of ten short stories.
Other short stories and novelettes[edit]
- Hospital Sketches (1863)
- Pauline's Passion and Punishment (1863)
- My Contraband, first published as The Brothers (1863)
- The Mysterious Key and What It Opened (1867)
- Doctor Dorn's Revenge (1868)
- La Jeune; or, Actress and Woman (1868)
- Countess Varazoff (1868)
- The Romance of a Bouquet (1868)
- A Laugh and A Look (1868)
- Perilous Play (1869)
- Lost in a Pyramid, or the Mummy's Curse
- Transcendental Wild Oats (1873)
- Silver Pitchers, and Independence: A Centennial Love Story (1876)
- A Whisper in the Dark (1877)
- The Candy Country (1885)
- May Flowers (1887)
- Mountain-Laurel and Maidenhair (1887)
- Comic Tragedies (1893, posthumous)
Poems[edit]
- “My Kingdom” (written 1845, published 1875)
- “The Children’s Song” (written 1860, published 1889)
- “Young America” (1861)
- "With A Rose That Bloomed on the Day of John Brown’s Martyrdom" (1862)
- "Thoreau's Flute" (1863)
- “Come, Butter, Come” (1867)
- “What Shall the Little Children Bring” (1884)
- “Oh, the Beautiful Old Story” (1886)
- “The Fairy Spring” (1887)
References[edit]
- ^ Cullen-DuPont 2000, pp. 8–9.
- ^ MacDonald 1983, p. 1.
- ^ Alcott 1988, pp. x–xi.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 6; Matteson 2007, p. 48
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 15; Matteson 2007, pp. 9, 49–50
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 7; Reisen 2009, pp. 25–27; MacDonald 1983, p. 1; Meigs 1968, pp. 27–28
- ^ Matteson 2007, p. 49.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 10; Saxton 1995, p. 146; Moses 1909, pp. 33–34
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 40, 42.
- ^ Freeman 2015.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 10; Moses 1909, p. 8
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 37.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 81; New York Times 1888
- ^ National Parks Service.
- ^ Richardson 1995, pp. 245–251.
- ^ Alcott 1988, p. xi.
- ^ Alcott 1988, p. xiii; Saxton 1995, p. 148; Elbert 1987, p. 52
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 83.
- ^ Saxton 1995, pp. 82, 87.
- ^ Elbert 1987, p. 34.
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 35–36.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 115.
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 43–44, 46; Delamar 1990, p. 12
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 120.
- ^ Delamar 1990, pp. 12–13; Moses 1909, p. 12
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 47; Moses 1909, p. 11
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 116; Elbert 1987, p. 41. Saxton states the girls attended the Concord Academy, while Elbert explains that Louisa Alcott attended a different school for younger children that was held at the Emerson's house.
- ^ Saxton 1995, pp. 131, 136; Meigs 1968, pp. 35–36
- ^ Elbert 1987, p. 54; Moses 1909, p. 19
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 136; Reisen 2009, pp. 61–63; Meigs 1968, pp. 36–37; Moses 1909, p. 22
- ^ Cheever 2011, p. 77; Alcott 1988, p. xiv–xv
- ^ Richardson 1911, p. 529.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 147.
- ^ Moses 1909, p. 32; Delamar 1990, pp. 22–23
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 18.
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 81–82; Saxton 1995, pp. 147, 149; Meigs 1968, pp. 54–56
- ^ MacDonald 1983, p. 3; Saxton 1995, pp. 150–151
- ^ Moses 1909, p. 37.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 34; Reisen 2009, p. 87; Meigs 1968, p. 57
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 25; Saxton 1995, p. 158
- ^ Delamar 1990, pp. 25, 29; Reisen 2009, p. 92; Meigs 1968, pp. 70–71
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 27; Meigs 1968, p. 67; Moses 1909, p. 43
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 31; Reisen 2009, p. 103-105; Stern 2000, p. 32
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 31.
- ^ Cheever 2011, p. 87.
- ^ Ronsheim 1968.
- ^ Alcott 1988, p. xiii; Reisen 2009, p. 107; Moses 1909, p. 10
- ^ Alcott 1988, p. xii; Britannica 2024
- ^ Parr 2009, p. 73-4.
- ^ American Heritage; MacDonald 1983, p. 2, 74; Durst Johnson 1999, pp. 104–105
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 108.
- ^ louisamayalcott.net; Delamar 1990, p. 37; Reisen 2009, p. 120; Doyle 2001, p. 11
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 179, 182; Meigs 1968, pp. 72
- ^ a b Alcott 1988.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 111-112; Delamar 1990, p. 34
- ^ Shealy 1992, p. 15.
- ^ Golden 2003, p. 8; Shealy 2005, p. xx; Doyle 2001, p. 11
- ^ NPR 2009.
- ^ Parr 2009, p. 71; Doyle 2001, pp. 10–11; Reisen 2009, pp. 114–115
- ^ a b c d e f g h Parr 2009, p. 72.
- ^ Parr 2009, p. 72; Meigs 1968, p. 76
- ^ Parr 2009, p. 72; Delamar 1990, p. 36; Stern 1998, p. 255
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 36.
- ^ a b Parr 2009, p. 73.
- ^ Shealy 2005, p. xx; Golden 2003, p. 8
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 137.
- ^ Richardson 1911, p. 529;Cheever 2010, p. 46
- ^ Stern 2000, p. 32.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 41.
- ^ Reisen 2010, p. 170.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 202.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 128.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 129; Delamar 1990, pp. 42–43
- ^ Delamar 1990, pp. 42–43; Reisen 2009, p. 133
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 133–134; Saxton 1995, p. 208
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 133.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 134.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 135.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 140.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 140; Saxton 1995, p. 212
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 145–146; Saxton 1995, p. 214
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 142.
- ^ Doyle 2001, p. 12.
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 142, 144.
- ^ Alcott 1988; Saxton 1995, pp. 217, 219
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 147–149; Saxton 1995, p. 227
- ^ Showalter 2004; Doyle 2003, p. 3
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 149; Saxton 1995, p. 228
- ^ Norwich 1990, p. 11.
- ^ Matteson 2016, pp. 32–33; Reisen 2009, p. 165
- ^ MacDonald 1983, p. 5; Reisen 2009, p. 170; Delamar 1990, p. 60
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 60; MacDonald 1983, p. 5; Meigs 1968, p. 112
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 170–173.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 61.
- ^ Richardson 1911, p. 529; Stern 2000, p. 32
- ^ Meigs 1968, p. 129.
- ^ Meigs 1968, p. 127.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 63; Matteson 2016, p. 34; Reisen 2009, pp. 176–180; Meigs 1968, pp. 129–131
- ^ Richardson 1911, p. 529; Johnson 1906, pp. 68–69
- ^ Dromi 2020, p. 26.
- ^ Peck 2015, pp. 73–76; Reisen 2009, p. 182
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 265.
- ^ Elbert 1987, pp. 118–119.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 269-270.
- ^ Doyle 2001, p. 13.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 281-282.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 274-280.
- ^ a b Reisen 2009, p. 279.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 231.
- ^ MacDonald 1983, p. 6; Meigs 1968, p. 159
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 76, 79; Doyle 2001, p. 15
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 80.
- ^ MacDonald 1983, p. 6.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 206.
- ^ a b Boston Women's Heritage Trail.
- ^ Meigs 1968, p. 160.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 295; Doyle 2001, p. 17
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 2, 4
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 193; Saxton 1995, p. 287
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 76-79; Doyle 2001, p. 15
- ^ Stern & Shealy 1993; Hill 2008
- ^ Sands-O'Connor 2001; MacDonald 1983, p. 6
- ^ Meigs 1968, pp. 166–168.
- ^ "Introduction". Little Women. Penguin Classics. 1989. ISBN 0-14-039069-3.
- ^ Doyle 2001, p. 17; Meigs 1968, pp. 162–165
- ^ Lyon Clark 2004, p. 76.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 242, 252.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 295; Meigs 1968, p. 170
- ^ Lyon Clark 2004, pp. 79–81; Meigs 1968, pp. 172–174
- ^ Meigs 1968, p. 175.
- ^ Delamar 1990, pp. 95–100; Saxton 1995, p. 307
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 100; Saxton 1995, pp. 309–310; Reisen 2009, p. 238
- ^ Meigs 1968, pp. 179–180.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 238-239.
- ^ Saxton 1995, pp. 311–312.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 288.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 283.
- ^ Lyon Clark 2004, p. 369-370; Saxton 1995, p. 271
- ^ Meigs 1968, p. 195.
- ^ Lyon Clark 2004, pp. 364–366, 362.
- ^ Cullen-DuPont 2000, p. 8-9.
- ^ Franklin 1999.
- ^ University of Alabama 2005; The New York Times 2021
- ^ Ross Nickerson 2010, p. 31.
- ^ Live Journal.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 320.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 321-324.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 324.
- ^ Reisen 249, p. 249.
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 262–263; Meigs 1968, pp. 189, 193
- ^ Delamar 1990, pp. 116–117; Reisen 2009, p. 259; Saxton 1995, pp. 341–343
- ^ Saxton 1995, pp. 343–344.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 117.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 345.
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 264–265; Meigs 1968, p. 189
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 272–273; Cheney 2010, p. 323 ; Saxton 1995, p. 353
- ^ Stern 1999; Stern 2000, p. 40; Reisen 2009, pp. 275–276; Saxton 1995, p. 353
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 122; Saxton 1995, pp. 354–355
- ^ Porter in Shealy 2005, p. 71.
- ^ Meigs 1968, p. 193.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 125 MacDonald 1983, p. 8; Saxton 1995, p. 367-368
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 362-364Meigs 1968, p. 192
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 264.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 286.
- ^ Lerner 2007.
- ^ Hirschhorn & Greaves 2007, p. 244.
- ^ Doyle 2001, p. 17.
- ^ Shealy 2005, p. xxviii; Golden 2003, p. 9; MacDonald 1983, p. 8
- ^ Hirschhorn & Greaves 2007, pp. 244, 248, 251–253; Saxton 1995, pp. 267–268
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 269.
- ^ Lerner 2007; Hill 2008, "Louisa succumbed to typhoid pneumonia within a month and had to be taken home. Although she narrowly survived the illness she did not recover from the cure. The large doses of calomel—mercurous chloride—she was given poisoned her and she was never well again."
- ^ Hirschhorn & Greaves 2007, p. 254.
- ^ Lerner 2007; Hirschhorn & Greaves 2007, pp. 255–256
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 271.
- ^ Delamar 1990, pp. 112–113, 133; Shealy 2005, p. xxix; Golden 2003, p. 9; Saxton 1995, pp. 331–332
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 136.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 135; Reisen 2009, p. 292
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 139; Reisen 2009, pp. 292–293
- ^ Johnson 1906, pp. 68–69; Reisen 2009, p. 294
- ^ Hirschhorn & Greaves 2007, pp. 247–248; Delamar 1990, p. 139
- ^ Hirschhorn & Greaves 2007, p. 247.
- ^ Isenberg & Burstein 2003, p. 244 n42.
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 298–300.
- ^ a b Nancy Porter Productions 2015.
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 40–41; Delamar 1990, pp. 7–8; Saxton 1995, p. 102
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 15.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 40.
- ^ Delamar 1990, pp. 34–35; Saxton 1995, p. 176
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 153; Delamar 1990, p. 51
- ^ Reisen 2009, pp. 163–164; Matteson 2016, p. 32; Delamar 1990, pp. 37, 80–81
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 185.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 265.
- ^ Sander 1998, p. 66.
- ^ Brooks 2011; Delamar 1990, p. 125; Matteson 2016, p. 35
- ^ Stern 1978, pp. 433–434.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 113.
- ^ Stern 1978, p. 433.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 126.
- ^ The Radical 1868.
- ^ Saxton 1995, p. 334.
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 280; Delamar 1990, p. 126
- ^ Thomas 2016, p. 42.
- ^ Matteson 2016, p. 35.
- ^ Moulton 1884, p. 49; Martin 2016
- ^ a b Stern 1978, p. 435.
- ^ Porter in Shealy 2005, p. 69.
- ^ Doyle 2001, p. 9; Sneller 2013, p. 42
- ^ a b Reisen 2009, pp. 301–302.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 227.
- ^ Delamar 1990, pp. 279–230.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 232.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 233; Stern 1998, p. 264
- ^ Reisen 2009, p. 302; Stern 1998, p. 264
- ^ Golden 2003, p. 12.
- ^ a b R., Cindy 2018.
- ^ louisamayalcott.net.
- ^ Alcott 2015, p. 689.
- ^ Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House.
- ^ Delamar 1990, p. 247.
- ^ BBC.
- ^ Hischak 2014, p. 123.
- ^ Turner Classic Movies.
- ^ Scott 1997.
- ^ Scheib 2008.
- ^ a b Atlas 2017.
- ^ Atlas 2017; Eiselein 2016, p. 221
- ^ Eiselein 2016, p. 221.
- ^ National Women's Hall of Fame.
Works cited[edit]
Books[edit]
- Alcott, Louisa May (1988). Showalter, Elaine (ed.). Alternative Alcott. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0813512723.
Alternative Alcott
- Alcott, Louisa May (November 2, 2015). The Annotated Little Women. Manhattan, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393072198.
- Allen, Amy Ruth (1998). Louisa May Alcott. Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0822549383.
- Cheever, Susan (2011) [2010]. Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography (1st ed.). Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1416569923.
- Cheever, Susan (November 2010). Louisa May Alcott. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-6991-6.
- Cheney, Ednah D., ed. (1889). Louisa May Alcott, Life, Letters, and Journals. Boston. ISBN 978-1518656934. Archived from the original on May 2, 2023. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Cullen-DuPont, Kathryn (2000). Encyclopedia of Women's History in America. Infobase Publishing. pp. 8–9. ISBN 978-0-8160-4100-8. Archived from the original on January 13, 2023. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
- Gloria T. Delamar (1990). Louisa May Alcott and "Little Women": Biography, Critique, Publications, Poems, Songs and Contemporary Relevance. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-8995-0421-3. Wikidata Q126509746.
- Doyle, Christine (2001). "Louisa May Alcott (29 November 1832-6 March 1888)". In Hudock, Amy E.; Rodier, Katharine (eds.). Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Women Prose Writers, 1820-1870. Vol. 239. USA: The Gale Group.
- Doyle, Christine (2003). Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Bronte: Transatlantic Translations. Univ. of Tennessee Press. ISBN 1572332417.
- Dromi, Shai M. (2020). Above the fray: The Red Cross and the making of the humanitarian NGO sector. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. p. 26. ISBN 9780226680101. Archived from the original on October 29, 2020. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
- Durst Johnson, Claudia (1999). "Discord in Concord: National Politics and Literary Neighbors". In Idol, Jr, John L.; Ponder, Melinda M. (eds.). Hawthorne and Women. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-174-0.
- Eiselein, Gregory (2016). "Louisa May Alcott, Patti Smith, and Punk Aesethetics". In Eiselein, Gregory; Phillips, Anne K. (eds.). Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott. Ipswich, MA, USA: Salem Press. pp. 221–236. ISBN 978-1-61925-521-0.
- Elbert, Sarah (1987) [1984]. A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott's Place in American Culture. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-1199-2.
- Golden, Catherine J. (December 30, 2003). "Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)". In Knight, Denise (ed.). Writers of the American Renaissance: An A-to-Z Guide. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 978-0-313-01707-0.
- Hischak, Thomas S. (January 10, 2014). American Literature on Stage and Screen: 525 Works and Their Adaptations. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-9279-4.
- Isenberg, Nancy; Burstein, Andrew, eds. (2003). Mortal Remains: Death in Early America. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- public domain: Johnson, Rossiter, ed. (1906). "Alcott, Louisa May". The Biographical Dictionary of America. Vol. 1. Boston: American Biographical Society.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the - Kronenberger, Louis; Morison Beck, Emily, eds. (1965). Atlantic Brief Lives:: A Biographical Companion to the Arts (2 ed.). Little, Brown & Co.
- Lyon Clark, Beverly (2004). Louisa May Alcott: The Contemporary Reviews. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521827805.
- MacDonald, Ruth K. (1983). Louisa May Alcott. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-7397-5.
- Martin, Lauren (November 29, 2016). "Louisa May Alcott's Quotes That Lived 184 Years". Words of Women. Archived from the original on June 3, 2019. Retrieved June 3, 2019.
- Matteson, John (2007). Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-05964-9.
- Matteson, John (2016). "'When Rude Hands Shake the Hive': Louisa May Alcott and the Transformation of America". In Eiselein, Gregory; Phillips, Anne K. (eds.). Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott. Ipswich, MA, USA: Salem Press. pp. 27–38. ISBN 978-1-61925-521-0.
- Meigs, Cornelia (1968). Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0316565943.
- Moses, Belle (1909). Louisa May Alcott, Dreamer and Worker: A Story of Achievement. D. Appleton and Company.
- Moulton, Louise Chandler (1884). "Louisa May Alcott". Our Famous Women: An Authorized Record of the Lives and Deeds of Distinguished American Women of Our Times. A. D. Worthington & Company. p. 49.
- Norwich, John Julius (1990). Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia Of The Arts. USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-869137-2.
- Parr, James L. (2009). Dedham: Historic and Heroic Tales From Shiretown. The History Press. ISBN 978-1-59629-750-0.
- Peck, Garrett (2015). Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America's Great Poet. Charleston, SC: The History Press. pp. 73–76. ISBN 978-1626199736.
- Porter, Maria S. (2005). "Recollections of Louisa May Alcott (1892)". In Shealy, Daniel (ed.). Alcott in Her Own Time. Iowa City, IA, USA: University of Iowa Press. pp. 58–73. ISBN 0-87745-937-1.
- Reisen, Harriet (2009). Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-8299-9.
- Reisen, Harriet (October 25, 2010). Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (Unabridged ed.). Macmillan + ORM. ISBN 978-1-4299-2881-6.
- Richardson, Charles F. (1911). Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 529.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
. In - Richardson, Robert D. (1995). Emerson: The Mind on Fire: A Biography. University of California: Berkeley. pp. 245–251. Retrieved June 18, 2024.
- Ross Nickerson, Catherine (2010). "4: Women Writers Before 1960". In Catherine Ross Nickerson (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction. Cambridge University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-521-13606-8.
- Sander, Kathleen Waters (1998). The Business of Charity: The Woman's Exchange Movement, 1832–1900. University of Illinois Press. p. 66. ISBN 0252067037.
- Saxton, Martha (1995). Louisa May Alcott: A Modern Biography. USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Shealy, Daniel, ed. (2005). Alcott in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends and Associates. Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-938-X.
- Stern, Madeleine B. (1950). Louisa May Alcott. University of Oklahoma Press.
- Stern, Madeleine B.; Shealy, Daniel, eds. (1993). "Introduction". The Lost Stories of Louisa May Alcott. New York: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-1654-2. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
- Stern, Madeleine B., ed. (1998). Louisa May Alcott: From Blood & Thunder to Hearth & Home. Northeastern University Press. ISBN 1-55553-349-3.
- Stern, Madeleine B. (1999). Louisa May Alcott. Boston: Northeastern University Press. pp. 168–182. ISBN 978-1555534172.
- Stern, Madeleine B. (2000). "Louisa May Alcott (29 November 1832-6 March 1888)". In Mott, Wesley T. (ed.). Dictionary of Literary Biography: The American Renaissance in New England. Vol. 223. USA: The Gale Group. ISBN 0-7876-3132-9.
- Thomas, Amy M. (2016). "Looking for Louisa: authors, Audiences, and Literatures in Alcott's Critical Reception". In Eiselein, Gregory; Phillips, Anne K. (eds.). Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott. Ipswich, MA, USA: Salem Press. pp. 39–51. ISBN 978-1-61925-521-0.
- Worthington, Marjorie (1958). Miss Alcott of Concord: A Biography. Doubleday & Company.
Journals[edit]
- Bradford, Gamaliel (1919). "Portrait of Louisa May Alcott". The North American Review. 209 (760): 391–403 – via JSTOR.
- Franklin, Rosemary F. (1999). ""Louisa May Alcott's Father(s) and 'The Marble Woman'"". ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly). 13 (4).
- Hirschhorn, Norbert; Greaves, Ian (2007). "Louisa May Alcott: Her Mysterious Illness". Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 50 (2): 243–259. doi:10.1353/pbm.2007.0019. PMID 17468541. S2CID 26383085.
- Ronsheim, Robert D. (February 29, 1968). "The Wayside: Minuteman National Historical Park. Historic Structure Report, Part II, Historical Data Section" (PDF). Minuteman National Historical Park. Historic Structure Report. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
- "Review 2 – No Title". The Radical. May 1868.
- Sands-O'Connor, Karen (March 1, 2001). "Why Jo Didn't Marry Laurie: Louisa May Alcott and The Heir of Redclyffe". American Transcendental Quarterly. 15 (1): 23.
- Shealy, Daniel (1992). "Louisa May Alcott's Juvenilia: Blueprints for the Future". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 17 (4). Johns Hopkins University Press: 15–18 – via Project MUSE.
- Sneller, Judy E. (2013). "Lurid Louisa or Angelic Alcott?: Humor, Irony, and Identity in Louisa May Alcott's Stories of the 1860s". The International Journal of literary Humanities. 10 (3). Common Ground Research Networks: 41–50. doi:10.18848/2327-7912/CGP/v10i03/43874.
- Stern, Madeleine B. (1978). "Louisa Alcott's Feminist Letters". Studies in the American Renaissance: 429–452. Retrieved July 16, 2024 – via JSTOR.
Websites[edit]
- "A Brief History of Summer Reading". The New York Times. July 31, 2021. Archived from the original on August 3, 2021. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
- "A Conversation with Harriet Reisen | Louisa May Alcott". louisamayalcott.net. Retrieved June 7, 2024.
- "Alcott: 'Not The Little Woman You Thought She Was'". NPR. December 29, 2009. Archived from the original on March 22, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2018.
- "Amos Bronson Alcott". National Parks Service. Retrieved June 18, 2024.
- "An Old-Fashioned Girl". www.tcm.com. Retrieved June 12, 2024.
- Atlas, Nava (September 2, 2017). "10 Writers Who Were Inspired by Jo March of Little Women". Literary Ladies Guide. Retrieved June 7, 2024.
- Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice (September 19, 2011). "Louisa May Alcott: The First Woman Registered to Vote in Concord". History of Massachusetts. Archived from the original on February 3, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2018.
- Freeman, Jean R. (April 23, 2015). "Louisa May Alcott, a spinster hero for single women of all eras". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved October 25, 2023.
- Hill, Rosemary (February 29, 2008). "From little acorns, nuts: Review of 'Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father' by John Matteson". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 1, 2016. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
- "Humanity, Said Edgar Allan Poe, Is Divided Into Men, Women, And Margaret Fuller". American Heritage. Archived from the original on December 28, 2022. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
- Lerner, Maura (August 12, 2007). "A diagnosis, 119 years after death". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008.
- "Little Women". BBC. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
- "Louisa May Alcott". Boston Women's Heritage Trail. Archived from the original on November 24, 2020. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- "Louisa May Alcott". Britannica. May 2024. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
- "Louisa May Alcott". University of Alabama. 2005. Archived from the original on December 5, 2020. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
- "Louisa M. Alcott Dead". The New York Times. March 7, 1888. Archived from the original on January 6, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2018.
- "Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House". Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House. Retrieved June 13, 2024.
- "Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, The Alcotts". Nancy Porter Productions, Inc. 2015. Archived from the original on February 3, 2015. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
- "1870's Louisa May Alcott". Archived from the original on December 25, 2022. Retrieved December 25, 2022.
- "National Women's Hall of Fame, Louisa May Alcott". Archived from the original on November 20, 2018. Retrieved November 19, 2018.
- R., Cindy (May 14, 2018). "Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind 'Little Women' ~ About the Film | American Masters | PBS". American Masters. Retrieved June 7, 2024.
- Scheib, Ronnie (November 3, 2008). "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving". Variety. Retrieved June 12, 2024.
- Scott, Tony (April 4, 1997). "Louisa May Alcott's the Inheritance". Variety. Retrieved June 12, 2024.
- Showalter, Elaine (March 1, 2004). "Moor, Please: New books on the Bronte phenomenon". Slate. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2022.
- To Louisa May Alcott. By Her Father. Archived from the original on May 14, 2019. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
Further reading[edit]
- Alcott, Louisa May, May Alcott, and Daniel Shealy. Little Women Abroad : The Alcott Sisters' Letters from Europe, 1870-1871. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008. ISBN 9780820330099
- Cheever, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-6461-7.
- Eiselein, Gregory; Phillips, Anne K., eds. (2001). The Louisa May Alcott Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press; online in ebrary, also available in print ed. ISBN 0-313-30896-9. OCLC 44174106.
- Eiselein, Gregory & Anne K. Phillips (2016). Critical Insights: Louisa May Alcott. Grey House Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61925-521-0.
- LaPlante, Eve (2012). Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother. Free Press. ISBN 978-1-451-62066-5.
- Larson, Rebecca D. (1997). White Roses: Stories of Civil War Nurses. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications. ISBN 1577470117. OCLC 38981206.
- Myerson, Joel; Shealy, Daniel; Stern, Madeleine B. (1987). The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-59361-3.
- Myerson, Joel; Shealy, Daniel; Stern, Madeleine B. (1989). The Journals of Louisa May Alcott. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-59362-1.
- Paolucci, Stefano. Da Piccole donne a Piccoli uomini: Louisa May Alcott ai Colli Albani Archived March 24, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, "Castelli Romani," LVII, n. 6, nov.–dec. 2017, pp. 163–175.
- Saxton, Martha (1977). Louisa May: A Modern Biography of Louisa May Alcott. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-25720-4.
- Seiple, Samantha (2019). Louisa on the Front Lines: Louisa May Alcott in the Civil War. New York: Seal Press, Hachette Book Group. ISBN 978-1-58005-804-9.
- Shealy, Daniel (2022). Little Women at 150. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1496837981.
- Strickland, Charles (1985). Victorian Domesticity: Families in the Life and Art of Louisa May Alcott. USA: University of Alabama Press.
External links[edit]
External videos | |
---|---|
Presentation by Harriet Reisen on Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, November 12, 2009, C-SPAN |
Sources
- Works by Louisa May Alcott in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
- Works by Louisa May Alcott at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Louisa May Alcott Archived November 13, 2012, at the Wayback Machine at Project Gutenberg Australia
- Works by or about Louisa May Alcott at Internet Archive
- Works by Louisa May Alcott at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by Louisa May Alcott Archived August 3, 2020, at the Wayback Machine at Online Books Page
- Index entry for Louisa May Alcott Archived June 12, 2010, at the Wayback Machine at Poets' Corner
- Bibliography (including primary works and information on secondary literature – critical essays, theses and dissertations)
Archival materials
- Guide to Louisa May Alcott papers, MS Am 800.23 at Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Guide to Louisa May Alcott additional papers, 1839–1888, MS Am 2114 at Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Guide to Louisa May Alcott additional papers, 1845–1945, MS Am 1817 at Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Guide to Louisa May Alcott additional papers, 1849–1887, MS Am 1130.13 at Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Guide to Louisa May Alcott papers, MSS 503 Archived November 29, 2022, at the Wayback Machine at L. Tom Perry Special Collections Archived November 2, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Brigham Young University
- Madeline B. Stern Papers on Louisa May Alcott, MSS 3953 Archived November 29, 2022, at the Wayback Machine at L. Tom Perry Special Collections Archived November 2, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Brigham Young University
- Carolyn Davis collection of Louisa May Alcott Archived August 3, 2020, at the Wayback Machine at the University of Maryland Libraries
Other
- Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind ‘Little Women’ Archived August 3, 2020, at the Wayback Machine – American Masters documentary (PBS)
- The Louisa May Alcott Society Archived February 3, 2015, at the Wayback Machine A scholarly organization devoted to her life and works.
- Louisa May Alcott, the real woman who wrote Little Women. Documentary materials.
- Minneapolis Tribune, March 7, 1888, Obituary: Miss Louisa M. Alcott
- Encyclopædia Britannica, Louisa May Alcott Archived April 30, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
- Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House Archived March 12, 2022, at the Wayback Machine Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House historic site in Concord, MA.
- Norwood, Arlisha. "Louisa Alcott" Archived July 12, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. National Women's History Museum. 2017.
- Matteson, J. (November 2009). Little Woman; The devilish, dutiful daughter Louisa May Alcott Archived March 21, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Humanities, 30(6), 1–6.
- Hooper, E. (September 23, 2017). Louisa May Alcott: A Difficult Woman Who Got Things Done Archived March 21, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
- Raga, S. (November 29, 2017). 10 Little Facts About Louisa May Alcott Archived March 21, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved March 20, 2018, National Women's Hall of Fame
- 1832 births
- 1888 deaths
- 19th-century American novelists
- 19th-century American poets
- 19th-century American women writers
- Alcott family
- American children's writers
- American Civil War nurses
- American women nurses
- American feminist writers
- Suffragists from Massachusetts
- Temperance activists from Massachusetts
- American women novelists
- American women poets
- American women's rights activists
- Female wartime nurses
- Members of the Transcendental Club
- Writers from Concord, Massachusetts
- Writers from Dedham, Massachusetts
- People from South End, Boston
- Pseudonymous women writers
- Underground Railroad people
- American women children's writers
- Women in the American Civil War
- Novelists from Boston
- Novelists from Philadelphia
- Writers of Gothic fiction
- Sewall family
- Quincy family
- 19th-century pseudonymous writers
- Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (Concord, Massachusetts)