Legacy Matters

Louisa May Alcott and Little Women

November 29th is the birthday of Louisa May Alcott, "the most disagreeable month of the whole year." Because her father Bronson Alcott kept a journal of his four daughters' growth and because we have the marvelous resource of the Library of Congress and the American Memory Project, we know what Louisa was like at age 2.

Louisa…manifests uncommon activity and force of mind at present…by force of will and practical talent, [she] realizes all that she conceives… Bronson Alcott, November 5, 1834.

I also learned that Louisa was home-schooled.

The Alcott girls enjoyed the natural beauty of Concord, boating on the river, ice skating on Walden Pond, and running free in the surrounding fields and woods. Henry David Thoreau was one of Louisa's instructors when she was a young girl. In one of his fanciful lessons, he taught her that a cobweb was a "handkerchief dropped by a fairy." As a teenager, Louisa enjoyed borrowing books from Ralph Waldo Emerson's collection and delighted in conversing with the "sage of Concord."

For the most part, the Alcotts taught their daughters at home. Daily journal-keeping formed a significant part of the home curriculum. Louisa and her sisters wrote a weekly newspaper in which they recorded family events and published their literary and artistic endeavors.

We are fortunate that Orchard House in Concord is open for tours, live and online. For countless American women who identified with Jo - "CHRISTMAS won't be Christmas without any presents" grumbled Jo lying on the rug, Little Women in book form or DVD - (the Katherine Hepburn version, the June Allyson version or the Winona Ryder version) still remains a favorite gift for daughters and nieces, a passing on of the Great Legacy of Louisa May.

Image from a Louisa May Alcott fan site