Writer of books including the much-beloved Little Women. Alcott based the novel’s headstrong Jo March on herself. In real life, the author’s upbringing was more colorful: her father, Bronson Alcott, was a noted transcendentalist and impractical crank who dragged the family between ill-fated utopian communities and instilled an appreciation for progressive causes. (The Alcotts housed a fugitive slave for week during Louisa’s early adolescence.) It’s no wonder, then, that her narratives championed independent women. One nineteenth-century critic called her oeuvre, which featured freethinkers and early feminist themes, “among the decided ‘signs of the times.'” Alcott’s novels were major bestsellers, yes, but her heroines—including progressive heiress Rose Campbell and independent music teacher Polly Milton—did more than make money: they created a new model for young women. As Alcott famously wrote in her childhood journal, “I want to do something splendid…Something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead…I think I shall write books.”
(Illustration by Sarah Glidden for The Book of Jezebel.)
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