Louisa May Alcott and Little Men

I beg leave to assure my honored readers that most of the incidents are taken from real life, and that the oddest are the truest; for no person, no matter how vivid an imagination he may have, can invent anything half so droll as the freaks and fancies that originate in the lively brains of little people. 

 Louisa May Alcott, Little Men

When readers like you requested that we give the beloved novel Little Men the Smidgen Press treatment, we were delighted. But how familiar are you with this lovely sequel to Little Women?

To understand Little Men by Louisa May Alcott, we believe it best to know a little more of the author and her extraordinary life with her family who underwent many challenges and sought reforms in society.

Alcotts, transcendentalism, and Plumfield Estate

New England in the 1820s and ’30s was the birthplace of the transcendentalist movement, an idealistic school of thought that challenged society by believing in the innate goodness of humanity, preferring emotional insights over pure logic, and teaching that time spent in nature was the way to “transcend” everyday materialism and religious structure.

Louisa May Alcott was born November 29, 1836 (her father’s 33rd birthday!), in Germantown, Pennsylvania, now Philadelphia. Parents Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May moved the family moved to Massachusetts two years later.

Bronson had founded a series of schools in the early 1800s, and ultimately his Temple School founded with their move to Boston blended transcendental thought with education structured around conversation rather than lecture. Bronson’s ideas and his unusual stances were too progressive for some and too blasphemous for others, and the school

The Alcotts had close relationships with leaders of the movement, like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Alcott sisters were educated rather sporadically at home through their childhood, taught primarily by their father but also by Thoreau, Emerson, and others. (Some experts believe that Professor Baird, whom Jo March marries in Alcott’s most famous novel, Little Women, is actually based off Thoreau.)

The Alcott family was so entrenched in the transcendentalist movement that after the closure of the Temple School, he met a fellow visionary in Charles Lane, and together they co-founded the Utopian Fruitlands. Fruitlands was an experimental community built on simplicity: a vegetarian diet, work performed by humans and not animals, no tea or coffee, all scaled back to a standard of “enough,” not excess. This, they presumed, would not require them to trade with any other communities, nor have interaction unless they chose.

Fruitlands ultimately failed after seven months, when their humans-only stance on labor and the short growing seasons of the Northeast left the community unable to feed themselves. A snippet from ten-year-old Louisa’s journal reflects her fear at the end:

“[My sister] Anna and I cried in bed … and I prayed God to keep us all together.”

Despite this real-life lack of success, when one reads the books which Louisa primarily based off her family, it is simple to connect the dots and see the ideal society mirrored in her stories, with its aim of perfection and harmony.

Within the pages of Little Men, in particular, Plumfield Estate (or just “Plumfield”) almost stands as its own little utopian society, parallels apparent in how the young pupils are given gardens to work and taught lessons in a home-like environment. It is certainly balanced by the realism of feisty boys and girls who have things to learn and who must be guided in a manner tailored to them as individuals, not rote or blanket corrections.

The Underground Railroad and women’s rights

To call the Alcott family progressive might be understating things, and their family’s belief in human rights was often not well received. Bronson admitted a Black student to his school, either at the end of the Temple School or in the school he opened in his home after the closure (records are conflicting). The presence of this student caused the majority of the families to remove their children from his tutelage.

After Fruitlands, their next family home became a stop on the Underground Railroad for slaves seeking freedom, in 1846–47, and Louisa went on to volunteer and nurse soldiers in a Union hospital during the Civil War.

It was during Louisa’s time at the hospital that she contracted typhoid fever. She was treated with medication that may have led to mercury poisoning, possibly triggering autoimmune challenges which plagued her for the rest of her life. She later wrote about the mismanagement of the hospital and some of her experiences as a nurse in Hospital Sketches, her first brush with literary success.

Louisa maintained her position as an abolitionist and also pushed for women’s rights, advocating for herself and others and encouraging them to seek the avenues and privileges they should be entitled to. Louisa herself was the first registered woman voter in Concord, Massachusetts, and did much to encourage other local women to register and vote.

Jo and Louisa

As we have seen with another of our favorite authors (spoiler: it’s Maud Montgomery), Louisa is believed to have based one of her most beloved characters, Jo March, on herself.

Like Jo, Louisa was headstrong, determined, untamed. Jo, like Louisa, was a writer, trying to help provide financially for her struggling family. Also like Louisa, she was the second of four sisters, raised in an unconventional family. Both Louisa and Jo were devastated to lose a younger sister who died form complications associated to an illness she contracted during charitable work.

But there are differences and we should make certain not to confuse the two. Whereas Jo went on to marry, Louisa did not, and in real life Louisa seemed to disdain the fact that some women thought it their ultimate purpose.

While Louisa elected to remain single, she did have a brief affair with a young Polish man she based the character Laurie on. And though Louisa she did not raise a family the same way Jo did, she went on to adopt her niece, also named Louisa (“Lulu”).

Louisa’s legacy

Having lived to only age 55, Louisa May Alcott died of a stroke only two days after the death of her father. She was laid to rest in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, on a hill known as “author’s ridge” among the graves of Thoreau, Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Louisa lived an amazing, vibrant life, one not defined by societal norms. Her literary works have influenced many generations and will go on to do so as her books reach bestseller status year after year.

And now we bring you …

Next up in 2024, Smidgen Press is bringing you Little Men by Louisa May Alcott, coming to life with Clara M. Burd’s beautiful illustrations! Burd is another example of a talented woman, though much less is written about her life besides that she was trained in art in both New York and Paris, and then became a celebrated stained glass artist for multiple companies, including Tiffany Glass.

We are so excited to bring you this lovely new edition.

It has been a joy to breathe life back into classics like this one, and we encourage you to let us know what others you’d like to see. Enter book details at smidgenpress.com/requests.