Little Women

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Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, the second of four daughters of Amos Bronson and Abigail Alcott. Her mother, known in the family as “Abba,” was from a distinguished Boston family. Her father, a self-educated son of farmers, was an educator and reformer; his controversial and often unpopular teaching philosophies kept him from steady employment and the family (Louisa called it the “Pathetic Family”) continually on the edge of poverty. The Alcotts often relied upon the generosity of family and friends, including American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who frequently provided financial support.

When Louisa was two, the family moved to Boston to be near Abba’s family and Emerson. They would move frequently between Boston and Concord for the rest of Louisa’s life. Bronson Alcott became part of a group of writers and philosophers known as the Transcendentalist Club, which included Emerson and writer Henry David Thoreau, both of whom Louisa idolized. Throughout her life Louisa was brash and moody, with a quick tongue that often angered her father.

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