Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott (/ˈɔːlkət/; 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. Encouraged by her family, Alcott began writing from an early age.

Alcott's family experienced financial hardship, and while Alcott took on various jobs to help support the family from an early age, she also sought to earn money by writing. In the 1860s she began to achieve critical success for her writing with the publication of Hospital Sketches, a book based on her service as a nurse in the American Civil War. 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. Little Women was one of her first successful novels and has been adapted for film and television. It is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Alcott Pratt.

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. During the last eight years of her life she raised the daughter of her deceased sister. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Louisa May Alcott has been the subject of numerous biographies, novels, and a documentary, and has influenced other writers and public figures such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Theodore Roosevelt.

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, now part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her parents were transcendentalist and educator Amos Bronson Alcott and social worker Abigail May. Alcott was the second of four daughters, with Anna as the eldest and Elizabeth and May as the youngest. Alcott was named after her mother's sister, Louisa May Greele, who had died four years earlier. After Alcott's birth, Bronson kept a record of her development, noting her strong will, which she may have inherited from her mother's May side of the family. He described her as "fit for the scuffle of things".

The family moved to Boston in 1834, where Alcott's father established the experimental Temple School and met with other transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Bronson participated in child-care but often failed to provide income, creating conflict in the family. At home and in school he taught morals and improvement, while Abigail emphasized imagination and supported Alcott's writing at home. With all the commotion going on at the time writing helped her handle her emotions. Alcott was often tended by her father's friend Elizabeth Peabody, and later she frequently visited Temple School during the day.

Alcott kept a journal from an early age. Bronson and Abigail often read it and left short messages for her on her pillow. She was a tomboy who preferred boys' games and preferred to be friends with boys or other tomboys. She wanted to play sports with the boys at school but was not allowed to.

Alcott was primarily educated by her father, who established a strict schedule and believed in "the sweetness of self-denial." When Alcott was still too young to attend school, Bronson taught her the alphabet by forming the letter shapes with his body and having her repeat their names. For a time she was educated by Sophia Foord, whom she would later eulogize. She was also instructed in biology and Native American history by Thoreau, who was a naturalist, while Emerson mentored her in literature. Alcott had a particular fondness for Thoreau and Emerson; as a young girl, they were both "sources of romantic fantasies for her." Her favorite authors included Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sir Walter Scott, Fredericka Bremer, Thomas Carlyle, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Goethe, and John Milton, Friedrich Schiller, and Germaine de Staele.

In 1840, after several setbacks with Temple School and a brief stay in Scituate, the Alcotts moved to Hosmer Cottage in Concord. Emerson, who had convinced Bronson to move his family to Concord, paid rent for the family, who were often in need of financial help. While living there, Alcott and her sisters befriended the Hosmer, Goodwin, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Channing children, who lived nearby. The Hosmer and Alcott children put on plays and often included other children. Alcott and Anna also attended school at the Concord Academy, though for a time Alcott attended a school for younger children held at the Emerson house. At eight years-old, Alcott wrote her first poem, "To the First Robin". When she showed the poem to her mother, Abigail was pleased.