To know what this family did accomplish, one must descend the hill and walk along Lexington Road to Orchard House. The Hillside Chapel, home of the Concord School of Philosophy, still stands on the property, and each summer it still welcomes scholars who gather to discuss the Alcott legacy. But something deeper can be learned from looking at the children who never stop coming to Bronson’s and Louisa’s house. They are eager, hushed, and wide-eyed. They come to see something they cannot describe but most certainly feel, something that comes neither precisely from the Marches nor the Alcotts, but is perhaps an idea of how life and families ought to be. Louisa once wrote to an admirer, “To all of us comes[a] desire for something to hold by, look up to, and believe in.”73 In the eyes of the children who come to Orchard House, it is possible to see not only this desire, but also its partial satisfaction. Louisa May Alcott, who poured her life’s experience into works of fiction, never wrote the great book for adults of which she thought she was capable. Her youngest sister left a number of attractive canvases and some whimsical drawings on her bedroom wall. Few people know the other two sisters as anything more than characters in a book. Bronson Alcott spent his life chasing a nameless, evanescent ideal and filling up massive journals that only scholars care to read. Were it not for the pen of her gifted daughter, Abba Alcott, though better known than most of the nineteenth-century women who toiled ceaselessly for their families, would have left a principally invisible legacy. However, through some strange spiritual alchemy, the novelist, her sisters, and the parents who raised them created something extraordinary. Louisa May Nieriker summarized it best in an interview she gave in the last year of her life. She said, “The Alcotts were large.”74 The largeness endures. Bronson Alcott expected the world to be miraculous. Talk with anyone who has read and loved Little Women, and you may conclude that he was right after all.
To the extent that a written page permits knowledge of a different time and departed souls, this book has tried to reveal them. However, as Bronson Alcott learned to his bemusement, the life written is never the same as the life lived. Journals and letters tell much. Biographers can sift the sands as they think wisest. But the bonds that two persons share consist also of encouraging words, a reassuring hand on a tired shoulder, fleeting smiles, and soon-forgotten quarrels. These contacts, so indispensable to existence, leave no durable trace. As writers, as reformers, and as inspirations, Bronson and Louisa still exist for us. Yet this existence, on whatever terms we may experience it, is no more than a shadow when measured against the way they existed for each other.
NOTES
PROLOGUE: DISGRACE
1. Sales at Auction by J. L. Cunningham, 13 April 1837, MS Am 1130.9(2), Houghton Library, Harvard University.
2. A. B. Alcott, Journal for 1837, Week XIV, MS Am 1130.12(10), p. 244, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
3. Shepard, Pedlar’s Progress, 130.
4. Ibid., 240.
5. Ralph Waldo Emerson to Frederic Henry Hedge, Concord, 20 July 1836, in Letters, II, 29.
6. Thoreau, Journal, 1842–1848, 223; Journal, 1853, 101.
7. N. Hawthorne, “The Hall of Fantasy,” in Tales and Sketches, 1491–92.
8. Thoreau, Walden, 39.
9. L. M. Alcott, Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys, 229.
10. Sanborn, Recollections, II, 476.
11. Shepard, Pedlar’s Progress, 242.
12. Abigail May Alcott, Journal, 5 August 1828, in Bedell, Alcotts, 3.
13. Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. May, 6 October 1834, in Barton, Transcendental Wife, 43.
14. Barton, Transcendental Wife, 56.
15. Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. May, November 1840, in Barton, Transcendental Wife, 71.
16. A. B. Alcott to Abigail May Alcott, Ham Common, England, 2 July 1842, in Letters, 80.
17. A. B. Alcott, 4 September 1869, Journals, 400.
18. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Spiritual Nurture,” 152, 161, 151.
19. Brooks, Flowering of New England, 231–32.
20. Milton, Paradise Lost, XII, l. 648, in Complete Poems, 469.
21. A. B. Alcott, Journal for 1837, Week VII, 98–100.
22. A. B. Alcott, Journal for 1837, Week XIII, 209.
23. Unidentified clipping, A. B. Alcott, Journal for 1837, 218.
24. A. B. Alcott, April 1837, Week XV, Journals, 88.
CHAPTER ONE: BEGINNINGS
1. Orcutt, History of Wolcott, 177–78.
2. Winthrop, “A Modell of Christian Charity,” in Warner, ed., American Sermons, 42.
3. A. B. Alcott, 13 March 1839, Journals, 117.
4. Orcutt, History of Wolcott, xii.
5. Ibid., 281.
6. A. B. Alcott, 7 August 1869, Journals, 398.
7. A. B. Alcott, New Connecticut, 15.
8. Ibid., 20.
9. Ibid., 13.
10. A. B. Alcott, Journal for 1850, 1 July, MS Am 1130.12(20), pp. 87–88, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
11. Orcutt, History of Wolcott, 239.
12. A. B. Alcott to E. Bronson Cooke, Concord, 30 August 1863, in Letters, 348.
13. A. B. Alcott, New Connecticut, 20.
14. A. B. Alcott, 24 July 1839, Journals, 133–34.
15. A. B. Alcott, 4 December 1828, Journals, 16.
16. A. B. Alcott, New Connecticut, 23.
17. Ibid., 152.
18. A. B. Alcott, 16 June 1875, Journals, 459.
19. A. B. Alcott, 17 October 1869, Journals, 401.
20. A. B. Alcott, 13 June 1873, Journals, 435.
21. A. B. Alcott, 8 January 1839, Journals, 111; New Connecticut, 49.
22. A. B. Alcott, 8 January 1839, Journals, 111.
23. A. B. Alcott, 8 January 1876, Journals, 464.
24. Emerson, Nature, in Essays and Lectures, 20.
25. Emerson, Representative Men, in Essays and Lectures, 690.
26. A. B. Alcott, 17 April 1839, Journals, 124.
27. A. B. Alcott, 15 June 1873, Journals, 436–37.
28. A. B. Alcott, 16 June 1828, Journals, 10.
29. A. B. Alcott, 10 May 1846, Journals, 180; Dahlstrand, Amos Bronson Alcott, 213.
30. Bedell, Alcotts, 110–11.
31. Richardson, Emerson, 80.
32. A. B. Alcott to Anna Bronson Alcott, Concord, 23 September 1861, in Letters, 323.
33. A. B. Alcott, Conversations, 251.
34. Douglas, Autobiography, 25.
35. Rainer, “The ‘Sharper’ Image,” 31.
36. A. B. Alcott, March 1846, Journals, 173.
37. A. B. Alcott, 19 February 1879, Journals, 495.
38. Ibid.
39. Orcutt, History of Wolcott, 244.
40. A. B. Alcott, 16 October 1830, Journals, 25.
41. A. B. Alcott to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Chatfield Alcox, Norfolk, Va., 24 January 1820, in Letters, 2.
42. Dwight, Travels, I, 223.
43. Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, 86.
44. A. B. Alcott to William Andrus Alcott, March 1823, in New Connecticut, 226–27.
45. Rainer, “The ‘Sharper’ Image,” 33.
46. A. B. Alcott, 31 July 1831, Journals, 29–30.
47. Anonymous, Hints to Parents, I, 3; V, 105–6; V, 3; I, 32.
48. Shepard, Pedlar’s Progress, 77; Bedell, Alcotts, 17.
49. Dahlstrand, Amos Bronson Alcott, 37–39.
50. A. B. Alcott, 6 December 1826, Journals, 7.
51. Shepard, Pedlar’s Progress, 97.
52. Elbert, Hunger for Home, 11.
53. Bedell, Alcotts, 4.
54. Ibid., 27.
55. Abigail May Alcott to Charles May, 20 October 1827, in Bedell, Alcotts, 31.
56. Saxton, Louisa May, 29.
57. Louisa May Alcott to Mrs. Bowles, Concord, 5 May (n.y.), in Selected Letters, 338.
58. Bedell, Alcotts, 3.
59. A. B. Alcott, 2 August 1828, Journals, 12.
60. Ibid.
61. Barton, Transcendental Wife, 12.
62. A. B. Alcott, 15 February 1829, Journals, 19.
63. William Ellery Channing, “Unitarian Christianity,” in Hochfield, ed., Selected Writings, 40.
64. Dahlstrand, Amos Bronson Alcott, 63.
65. Emerson, Complete Sermons, I, 203.
66. Ibid., 205.
67. A. B. Alcott, 15 February 1829, Journals, 19.
68. Shepard, Pedlar’s Progress, 124.
69. Bedell, Alcotts, 40.
70. A. B. Alcott, 13 April 1830, Journals, 24.
71. Samuel J. May to Abigail May, 21 July 1828, in Saxton, Louisa May, 39.
72. Ibid.
73. Shepard, Pedlar’s Progress, 130.
74. A. B. Alcott, 29 November 1828, Journals, 16.
75. Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. May, Boston, August 1828, MS Am 1130.9, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid.
78. Bedell, Alcotts, 44.
CHAPTER TWO: A BIRTHDAY IN GERMANTOWN
1. A. B. Alcott, 23 May 1830, Journals, 400.
2. A. B. Alcott, Observations on the Principles, 4–6.
3. Ibid., 5.
4. Ibid., 9–10.
5. Ibid., 8.
6. Abigail May Alcott to Samuel and Lucretia May, Germantown, Pa., 27 March 1831, MS Am 1130.9, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
7. A. B. Alcott, 16 March 1831, Journals, 28.
8. Bedell, Alcotts, 56–57.
9. A. B. Alcott, 18 (?) June 1831, Journals, 28.
10. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Life,” 17.
11. Ibid., 45–46.
12. Bedell, Alcotts, 60–61.
13. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Life,” 26.
14. Strickland, “Transcendentalist Father,” 23.
15. Ibid., 21–22.
16. Ibid., 24.
17. Dahlstrand, Amos Bronson Alcott, 92; Bedell, Alcotts, 63.
18. Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 26 July 1842, in A. B. Alcott, Journals, 145.
19. A. B. Alcott to Anna Alcott (Mrs. Joseph Alcox), Germantown, Pa., 29 November 1832, in Letters, 18.
20. A. B. Alcott, Journals for 1832–33, MS Am 1130.12(6), p. 41, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
21. A. B. Alcott to Colonel Joseph May, Germantown, Pa., 29 November 1832, in Letters, 19.
22. A. B. Alcott to Anna Alcott (Mrs. Joseph Alcox), Germantown, Pa., 29 November 1832, in Letters, 18.
23. A. B. Alcott to Colonel Joseph May, 29 November 1832, in Letters, 20.
24. Bedell, Alcotts, 66.
25. A. B. Alcott, 29 November 1832, Journals, 33.
26. Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. and Lucretia May (“Sam and Lu”), Germantown, Pa., 20 February 1833, MS Am 1130.9.
27. Biographers of the family have seen this shift in emphasis in ways that tend to suggest that Bronson loved Louisa less than Anna. They take his more speculative focus as evidence of a “retreat within himself,” revealing a lack of interest in this second baby or a failure to see her as anything other than an abstraction. Saxton, Louisa May, 76. Surely the most bizarre interpretation is offered by the usually perspicacious Madelon Bedell, who insinuates that Bronson’s downplaying of Louisa’s physical aspects arose from his attempt to repress a sexual attraction to the infant. Bedell, Alcotts, 65–66. The fact that Alcott’s reading had assumed a more metaphysical character at the time of Louisa’s birth seems to offer a simpler and less accusatory explanation.
28. Strickland, “Transcendentalist Father,” 32, 34.
29. A. B. Alcott, February 1833, Journals, 36.
30. A. B. Alcott, Journal, 23 April 1834, in Strickland, “Transcendentalist Father,” 39.
31. Ibid.
32. Abigail May Alcott to Samuel and Lucretia May, Philadelphia, 22 June 1833, MS Am 1130.9.
33. Strickland, “Transcendentalist Father,” 38.
34. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Life,” 10 July 1831.
35. A. B. Alcott, 12 June 1834, Journals, 44.
36. Dahlstrand, Amos Bronson Alcott, 103.
37. A. B. Alcott, 28 April 1834, Journals, 42.
38. A. B. Alcott, June 1832, Journals, 31.
CHAPTER THREE: THE TEMPLE SCHOOL
1. Marshall, Peabody Sisters, 107.
2. Ibid., 295.
3. McCuskey, Bronson Alcott, 51.
4. Marshall, Peabody Sisters, 295.
5. Peabody, Record of a School, 70.
6. A. B. Alcott to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Boston, n.d., in Letters, 21.
7. A. B. Alcott, Conversations, 200.
8. Peabody, Record of a School, 2.
9. Ibid., 145.
10. Martineau, Society, III, 175.
11. Peabody, Record of a School, 35.
12. Ibid., 9.
13. Emerson, Nature, in Essays and Lectures, 20.
14. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Spiritual Nurture,” 121.
15. Ibid., 84.
16. Ibid., 124
17. A. B. Alcott, “Researches on Childhood,” 23.
18. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Spiritual Nurture,” 69.
19. Ibid., 235–36.
20. Ibid., 80.
21. Ibid., 59.
22. Ibid., 239.
23. Ibid., 23.
24. A. B. Alcott, “Researches on Childhood,” 79–80.
25. Ibid., 105.
26. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Spiritual Nurture,” 23, 25.
27. Ibid., 37.
28. Ibid., 239.
29. Ibid., 240.
30. One instance of spanking is recounted in detail in “Observations on the Spiritual Nurture,” 109–10.
31. A. B. Alcott, “Researches on Childhood,” 123.
32. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Spiritual Nurture,” 161.
33. Ibid., 107.
34. Ibid., 170, 164.
35. A. B. Alcott, “Researches on Childhood,” 27, 84.
36. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Spiritual Nurture,” 136.
37. A. B. Alcott, 21 January 1835, Journals, 55.
38. A. B. Alcott, 24 June 1835, Journals, 57.
39. “Critical Notices,” New-England Magazine, September 1835; Portland Magazine, 1 September 1835; Eastern Magazine, October 1835; The Western Messenger, November 1835.
40. Frederic Henry Hedge, “Coleridge’s Literary Character—German Metaphysics,” The Christian Examiner 14 (March 1833), in Hochfield, ed., Selected Writings, 124.
41. A. B. Alcott, October, Week XLII, Journals, 105.
42. Julian Hawthorne, quoted in Richardson, Emerson, 195.
43. Emerson, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, II, 239.
44. Richardson, Emerson, 126.
45. Emerson, Early Lectures, I, 26.
46. A. B. Alcott, 5 February 1835, Journals, 56.
47. Dahlstrand, Amos Bronson Alcott, 131.
48. Richardson, Emerson, 214.
49. A. B. Alcott, 20 October 1835, Journals, 69.
50. A. B. Alcott, 10 April 1875, Journals, 456–57.
51. Emerson, “The American Scholar,” in Essays and Lectures, 62.
52. Ralph Waldo Emerson to Frederic Henry Hedge, Concord, 20 July 1836, in Letters, II, 29.
53. Shepard, Pedlar’s Progress, 152.
54. Richardson, Emerson, 212.
55. Ralph Waldo Emerson to Frederic Henry Hedge, Concord, 20 July 1836, in Letters, II, 30.
56. L. M. Alcott, “Recollections of My Childhood,” in Shealy, ed., Alcott, 33.
57. Ibid.
58. Bedell, Alcotts, 81–82.
59. Cheney, ed., Louisa May Alcott, 18.
60. A. B. Alcott, 2 August 1836 and 11 September 1836, Journals, 78.
61. Because the lines of the “poet” are not taken from any identified manuscript, some have disputed whether Alcott was the bard to whom Emerson was indebted. How ever, the ideas expressed are, as Odell Shepard notes, “Alcottian throughout.” In A. B. Alcott, Journals, 78n.
62. Ralph Waldo Emerson to
Amos Bronson Alcott, Concord, 27 February 1836, in Letters, II, 4–5.
63. Ibid., 5.
64. A. B. Alcott, “Researches on Childhood,” 105.
65. A. B. Alcott, “Observations on the Spiritual Nurture,” 112.
66. Ibid., 38–39.
67. When he used the word “genius,” Alcott typically intended something other than an “exceptionally gifted person.” He sometimes meant the unique motivating force within a given human being or, as here, a meaning derived from classical Latin, that of a “guardian spirit.” Thus, this journal entry was not quite the expression of egotism that it appears, though there was certainly arrogance aplenty in Bronson’s opinion of himself as a parent.
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