Louisa May Alcott
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.
Louisa May Alcott
November 29, 1832
Germantown, Pennsylvania U.S.
March 6, 1888 (aged 55)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
A. M. Barnard
Novelist
- Prose
- poetry
Young adult fiction
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.
Later years[edit]
In 1877, Alcott helped found the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston.[47] After her youngest sister May died in 1879, Louisa assumed the care of her niece, Lulu, who was named after Louisa.[48] Alcott suffered from chronic health problems in her later years,[49] including vertigo.[50] She and her earliest biographers[51] attributed her illness and death to mercury poisoning. During her American Civil War service, Alcott contracted typhoid fever and was treated with calomel, a compound containing mercury.[52] Recent analysis of Alcott's illness suggests that her chronic health problems may have been associated with an autoimmune disease, not mercury exposure. However, mercury is a known trigger for autoimmune diseases as well. An 1870 portrait of Alcott shows her cheeks to be quite flushed, perhaps with the "butterfly rash" across cheeks and nose which is often characteristic of lupus,[53] but there is no conclusive evidence available for a firm diagnosis.
Alcott died of a stroke[51] at age 55 in Boston, on March 6, 1888,[50] two days after her father's death.[29] She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, near Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, on a hillside now known as Authors' Ridge.[54] Her niece Lulu was only eight years old when Louisa died. She was cared for by Anna Alcott Pratt, then reunited with her father in Europe and lived abroad until her death in 1976.
Louisa frequently wrote in her journals about going on long walks and runs. She challenged prevailing social norms regarding gender by encouraging her young female readers to run as well.[55]
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.[56] 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.[57] 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.[56] Other various compilations of Alcott's letters were published in the following decades.[58] 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.[59] Katharine S. Anthony's Louisa May Alcott, written in 1938, was the first biography to focus on the author's psychology.[60] A comprehensive biography about Alcott was not written until Madeleine B. Stern's 1950 biography Louisa May Alcott.[61] In the 1960s-1970s, feminist analysis of Alcott's fiction increased; analysis also focused on the contrast between her domestic and sensation fiction.[62]
"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.[63] It was directed by Nancy Porter and written by Harriet Reisen, who wrote the script based on primary sources from Alcott's life.[64] 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.[63]
Alcott homes[edit]
The Alcotts' Concord home, Orchard House, where the family lived for 25 years[65] 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.[66] The Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association allows tourists to walk through the house and learn about Alcott.[67] Her Boston home is featured on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.[37]
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.[68] Little Men inspired film versions in 1934, 1940, and 1998, and was the basis for a 1998 television series.[69] Other films based on Alcott novels and stories are An Old-Fashioned Girl (1949),[70] The Inheritance (1997),[71] and An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving (2008).[72]
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.[73] 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."[73] 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.[74] 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.[75] Louisa May Alcott was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.[76]
Sources
Archival materials
Other