Louisa May Alcott is My Passion
Begun in 2010, this blog offers analysis and reflection by Susan Bailey on the life, works and legacy of Louisa May Alcott and her family. Susan is an active member and supporter of the Louisa May Alcott Society, the Fruitlands Museum and Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House.
I am pleased to present this guest post by Richard Smith. Meeting Thoreau In March 1840, Bronson Alcott and his family moved to Concord, Massachusetts. Along with Bronson were his wife, Abigail May, and their three young daughters: nine-year-old Anna, seven-year-old Louisa, and Elizabeth, aged four. There would soon be a fourth daughter added to …
Continue reading "“Our Pan” — Henry Thoreau and the Alcotts"
I am pleased to share with you a wonderful essay about the professional lives of Louisa May Alcott and May Alcott Nieriker written by Lauren Hehmeyer, a professor of History and English at Texarkana College. Professor Hehmeyer presented at the May Alcott conference in Paris in June of 2018 (see previous post) and is currently …
Last Wednesday I attended the first of three lectures on Bronson Alcott at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA, presented by Helen Batchelder, a local scholar. Fruitlands in the dark I have never been to Fruitlands before in the dark and it was disconcerting to see the lights over the mountains, reminding me it was …
Continue reading "Three-part series on Bronson Alcott at Fruitlands Museum: genius or crackpot?"
Warning: this is a long post but I believe, well worth the time. I was so fascinated when I first heard the presentation at the Summer Conversational Series that I opted not to take notes and just enjoy it!) At the recent Summer Conversational Series, Kristi Marti (tour guide de force; she has been a …
What's your dream for the ultimate summer vacation? Is it a trip to a new and/or exotic place? Is it time all to yourself to do whatever you wish? How about both? That’s been my dream for many summers and this year, it came true. New and exotic places Back in June, our whole family …
Continue reading "The vacation of my dreams: 3 days with Louisa May Alcott"
From the pages of Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag comes an intriguing memoir of the boys in Louisa May Alcott's life, "My Boys." From one "boy" to another Louisa had always preferred the company of boys and wished she had been born one herself. She particularly favored the age when boys were "regarded as nuisances till they are …
Reading the last few words, I slowly closed Mr. Emerson’s Wife and felt a welling up inside of emotion. I was so tied to the character of Lidian Jackson Emerson that I felt they were her emotions too. This is how Amy Belding Brown's book hit me. I lived inside of Mr. Emerson's Wife for …
I would like to read some basic books on Transcendentalism and its famous writers (Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Fuller, etc.) that are not too scholarly (for now) just to get a better, objective idea of what the tenants of it are. I had started reading American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever and was enjoying it but after …
Continue reading "Need book recommendations about Transcendentalism"
Louisa May Alcott is My Passion 