A Biography of Novelist and Feminist Louisa May Alcott

One of America's most treasured novelists and earliest feminists, Louisa May Alcott, was born November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Louisa was the second daughter to Abigail May, an early women's suffrage supporter, and Amos Bronson Alcott, a philosopher and teacher. Louisa's father helped found the Temple School in Boston, Massachusetts in 1834 and took a strong hold on his daughter's educations.

After the Alcott's failed attempt at living on a communal farm, the family moved to Concord, Massachusetts. Here, close family friends, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau were instrumental influences for Louisa's aspirations as a writer. Louisa had an active imagination, and although still rather young, would write out melodramas for her sisters and her to perform. She was drawn to the villains and thieves.

At fifteen years old, Louisa May Alcott vowed to herself and family that she would one day be rich and famous ending the vicious cycle of poverty that seemed to plague her the Alcott's. That year she began working tirelessly in any job available to her, teaching, sewing, as a governess and servant.

Louisa began her career writing short stories and poems for magazines. Some of her first works were written under the name "A.M. Barnard." Her first published book was a collection of works entitled "Flower Fables" and penned for Ellen, Emerson's daughter.

She would contribute short stories and poetry to the Atlantic Monthly, a popular magazine, until the Civil War broke out and she enlisted to be a nurse. Later in life, her work entitled "Hospital Sketches," which were a series of letters she wrote home while in service, published in 1863, would help propel her popularity. "Hospital Sketches" not only served to gain notoriety for her, but also was a well documented history of the life of a nurse during the civil war. It was integral in helping us understand what service women provided during the war efforts.