1832-1888

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Childhood• Born in 1832 in Pennsylvania •Her father was Amos Bronson Alcott, a well-known transcendentalist •Her mother was Abigail May Alcott, a women’s suffrage advocate• The family moved to Massachusetts in 1834 and her father became a member of the Transcendental Club with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau • Most of her education came from her father,

though she also received lessons from the likes of Thoreau, Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller

Orchard House in Concord, MA

Young Adulthood• Louisa was an abolitionist and a feminist, even housing a fugitive slave for a week in 1847• Poverty forced her to begin working at the age of 15• Seamstress• Teacher• Domestic helper• Writer• She vowed, "I will do something by and by.  Don’t care what, teach,

sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t!"

• Her first book, Flower Fables, was published in 1849• It was a collection of stories originally written for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s

daughter• She also published many poems and stories under various pen names, such as Flora Fairfield and A. M. Barnard

Midlife•She began writing for the Atlantic Monthly in 1860•When the Civil War broke out, Louisa served as a Union nurse in Georgetown, D.C. for six weeks (1862-1863)•Her letters home were compiled, revised, and published as Hospital Sketches (1863)• She received critical praise for it

•Became editor of a girl’s magazine, Merry’s Museum, in 1868

Literary Success• Little Women was published in 1869 and provided Louisa with financial success• Her published requested that she write a book for girls• Based on Louisa and her sisters coming of age during the

Civil War in New England• Jo, the protagonist, is based on herself• Spawned several sequels, including Good Wives, Little Men,

and Jo’s Boys• Published several other novels, including:• Eight Cousins• Rose in Bloom• Under the Lilacs• Jack and Jill

• She died in 1888, just two days after her father