'Little Women' and author Alcott resonate 150 years later
CONCORD, Mass. — A century and a half before the #MeToo movement gave women a bold, new collective voice, Louisa May Alcott was lending them her own.
Society had far different expectations of women in 1867, when publisher Thomas Niles asked Alcott to write a “girls' story.” At a time when women were expected to marry, often did not hold employment and could not vote, Alcott had her doubts about the success of “Little Women.”
Since then, the coming-of-age book has been translated into more than 50 languages and made into films, a musical and a recently aired PBS “Masterpiece” miniseries. The novel constantly finds new audiences as women worldwide confront sexual misconduct, misogyny and pay inequity.
Mayela Boeder, 34, of Appleton, Wis., read “Little Women” as a girl and thinks it's still relevant.
“You could say that strong females in literature, TV and every other medium have slowly shaped the minds of modern strong women,” she says.
“We grew up with Buffy, Hermione, Katnis, Jo, Lizzie Bennet, Sara Crewe, among others,” she says, “and so we have almost been groomed to fight for what's right and to not let others take advantage of us.”
Alcott drew heavily from her experiences living in poverty with progressive parents Bronson and Abigail Alcott and three sisters in Concord, Mass. Although her transcendentalist father led his family through 30 homes, one stands out as the place where “Little Women” was written: Orchard House.
Alcott was 26 when her family moved into the then-dilapidated house in 1858. The enterprising family turned the tenant farmhouse, once slated for destruction, into a place where Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and other literary neighbors would drop by for intellectual discussions. Bronson encouraged his wife and daughters to join and built Louisa a desk at a time when writing was considered by scientists to be injurious to the female psyche.
Looking back, says Orchard House Executive Director Jan Turnquist, the Alcotts were feminists. “They believed all humans have agency,” she says.
She tells of how Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register to vote in Concord in 1879, when Massachusetts gave women the right to vote in town elections on education and children issues.
In 1880, Alcott and 19 other women attended the Concord town meeting and cast their ballots. In a letter to the periodical Woman's Journal, Alcott wrote of voting: “No bolt fell on our audacious heads, no earthquake shook the town.”
Alcott did other unconventional things. At 30, she served as a nurse in the Civil War. She traveled alone when most women could not.
