Then we visited Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott’s wrote Little Women, inspired and based on the Alcott family.
Hillside House Years
First moving to Concord in 1844, the Alcotts lived with a friend until an inheritance enabled them to buy their own home.
Their friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, suggested the perfect home for them to buy, and even helped them financially to secure the house.
Upon purchase and moving in, they named their home Hillside House.
The oldest sister in the family, Anna, dreamed of stardom in the theater portraying good people.
Anna helped Louisa write melodramas to perform with their younger sisters for the entertainment of friends, in the stairwell of their home, Hillside House.
Like Jo March, Louisa was a tomboy who wrote stories, favoring adventurous characters such as knights and even villains.
Elizabeth, the third daughter in the Alcott family, was accurately portrayed by Beth March in Little Women in shyness, sweetness, and quiet happiness.
The youngest Alcott sister, May, was portrayed by Amy in Little Women.
Of her sister, May, Louisa wrote: She was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art.
Three years later Mrs. Alcott insisted on returning to Boston for city life, so they leased Hillside for a few years before selling it to Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1852.
Louisa considered the family’s years at Hillside the happiest she ever knew.
Orchard House Years
After a few years of poverty in Boston, the Alcotts returned to Concord, moving into Orchard House, which they called home longer than any other location, from 1858 to 1877
Orchard House Neighbors
The Little Women neighbors of Orchard House, Aunt Jo and Laurie, are fictional.
Instead, their neighbor was Nathaniel Hawthorne, living in their former home, Hillside House.
Hawthorne had renamed their old home Wayside, since it sat on the side of the main road. (Battle Road from the battles of Lexington and Concord)
Mr. Alcott: Transcendentalism
Mr. Alcott philosophized and taught the Transcendentalist movement, driving Nathaniel Hawthorne absolutely nuts! (If you ever meet Hawthorne, he will tell you all about it!)
In fact, other authors in the area were a part of the Transcendentalism movement, except Hawthorne. (He’ll tell you all about it.)
Mrs. Alcott: Helping the poor
Meanwhile Mrs. Alcott helped the poor by trying to find employment for them.
When a local lawyer asked her about a companion for his frail sister, Louisa agreed to help.
Expected as a companion to do light housework, Louisa also envisioned a lovely library full of music and art. However, that fell through.
Poverty led to early teaching jobs for the Alcott sisters
Due to the poverty the family endured, each of the stronger sisters, Anna, Louisa, and May, began teaching at an early age.
Due to numerous difficulties in the family, including financial, Louisa found writing cathartic.
Elizabeth: scarlet fever
Catching scarlet fever after helping a poor family in 1856, Elizabeth never fully recovered. Two years later she passed away.
Louisa wrote: My dear Beth died at three in the morning after two years of patient pain. Last week she put her work away, saying the needle was too heavy … Saturday she slept, and at midnight became unconscious, quietly breathing her life away till three; then, with one last look of her beautiful eyes, she was gone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau served as her pallbearers.
May pursues an art education
While May began her art education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Anna and Louisa joined others form a dramatic group called the Concord Dramatic Union.
Anna marries at Orchard House
While in that dramatic group, Anna fell in love with an actor playing opposite her.
Marrying at Orchard House before the war, in 1860, their guests included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
They had two sons, one born in 1863 and the other in 1865.
Washington DC Years
Although her father never went to war, Louisa did.
Serving as a nurse during the Civil War in Washington DC, Louisa treated wounded soldiers from numerous nearby battles.
Her letters documenting hospital care and lack thereof were published as Hospital Sketches, which were well received by the public.
Europe Years
May furthered her art studies with three European trips to Paris (1870), London (1873), and Rome (1877).
Louisa financed the trips after the publication of Little Women, which was illustrated by May.
Louisa joined her for the Paris trip, where she took a break from writing until she received news that her sister Anna’s husband had died, even though he had left Anna money.
Wanting to provide financial support for Anna and her sons, Louisa wrote Little Men, which was released the day she arrived back in America.
While studying art in London, May fell in love with a man she happily married a short time later in 1878.
Giving birth to a daughter a year later, May named her after her sister, Louisa May.
Unfortunately, May passed away a few week later.
Since May’s husband extensively traveled for his work, Louisa took care of her niece until her death in 1888.
Little Louisa, aka Lulu, went to Switzerland to live with her father.
Raindrops inspiring Little Women imaginings at the visitor center
While watching the visitor center movie, it started raining pitter patters on the metal roof.
Feeling a cozy warmth ensue me, I imagined I was in the March attic listening to the pitter patter of raindrops, watching the sisters dig out costumes from the trunk to perform their latest play.
Orchard House Tour
After the movie we dodged rain drops to enter the house for the tour.
My favorite part was seeing all of Amy’s (May’s) artwork which was lovely.
May drew on the walls of her room…much better than what I see most kids do.
We saw one of her pieces which she painted in Paris, which was displayed in a Paris art show for several months.
My son and I purchased a few of her art works that are now sold as notecards in the gift shop: a realistic still life that was displayed in Paris, and a charming scene of Westminster Abby as viewed through a gate, and flowers.
Visiting Louisa’s room where she wrote Little Women, her manuscript laid open on her desk.
There are many Beth’s in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind. -Little Women
