What I Learned from Louisa May Alcott

 
Published in 1868, the semi-autobiographical Little Women was destined to become a classic; it made Alcott famous, fiscally secure, and a household name. How many of us have aspired to be a March sister: Meg, Jo, Beth or Amy? But seldom do we hear the real story of Louisa May Alcott. Born right here in Germantown, PA, Louisa was the daughter of Bronson Alcott, a tragic Transcendentalist educator and dreamer who repeatedly and epically failed at most attempts to bring about social reform. Like many children today, Louisa was born and raised “working poor.” It was her pragmatic mother, not her brilliant father who supported the family of six on her one income.

 

Today, you can visit Orchard House where Louisa lived in Concord, MA. A hauntingly beautiful homestead that leaves you feeling transported to a magical other world. What you don’t see is a ravished New England during the crux of the Civil War, or learn that all of Louisa’s childhood and adolescence was spent being evicted and moving; from mansions to rooming houses; while following the dream of her father’s ill fated attempts of a utopia at Fruitlands. The first 20 years of Louisa’s life totaled six different residences with little money or resources. But what Louisa did have was community and a progressive father who believed that she was destined to be more than a governess.

 

Her family believed in education even if it was unconventional. Louisa’s early education included lessons from the naturalist Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller, whom were all family friends. She later described her education and childhood in a newspaper sketch entitled Transcendental Wild Oats, that relates the family's experiment in "plain living and high thinking" at Fruitlands. Poverty made it necessary for Alcott to go to work at an early age as an occasional teacher, seamstress, domestic helper, and writer. Eventually Louisa became a writer for the Atlantic Monthly, a popular periodical. She wrote of her experiences during the Civil War serving as a nurse in the Union Hospital that brought her first critical recognition for her observations and humor. Her novel Moods, based on her own experience, was also promising.

 

She also wrote passionate, fiery novels and sensational stories under the nom de plume A. M. Barnard. Among these are A Long Fatal Love Chase and Pauline's Passion & Punishment. Her protagonists for these tales are willful and relentless in their pursuit of their own aims, which often include revenge on those who have humiliated or thwarted them. Written in a style that was wildly popular at the time, these works achieved immediate commercial success. However it is Little Women and the March Family saga that transformed Louisa’s life.

 

Without having fallen in love with Little Women, I would not have thought to learn about Louisa May Alcott, the woman, the writer, the abolitionist, the feminist, the Transcendentalist. In discovering her exceptional life, her faith (a precursor to modern Unitarian Universalism) and her pursuit for inherent worth and self-determination against all odds, I would not have discovered the truth. Beyond happily ever after, was a woman whose life paralleled many of today trials and tribulations; from single incomes and wayward fathers, poverty, classism and inequality, Louisa learn that the search for what is true, courage, and faith in community leads to something exceptional.

 

Louisa’s life circumstances taught me that the only guarantee life truly holds is in having hope. Unitarian Universalists today aspire to intentionally create a world where hope endures. Hope for tomorrow, and hope that together we can make the world a better place. Regardless of circumstances, Louisa made hope her legacy, and her truth inspires me and makes me proud. People say that Unitarian Universalist’s have no prophets, creeds, or books of faith that bind us, but I think in many ways Louisa May Alcott was quite prophetic, with a living creed, and many books to inspire. Today, Louisa’s lesson that endures is hope creates change for the better.