Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Contributions of louisa may alcott
Short essay about louisa may alcott
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Contributions of louisa may alcott
Throughout her career, Louisa May Alcott wrote about the many things she experienced growing up; most relatable, Little Women, allows the reader to connect with the characters and relate to the ups and downs in life.
Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She lived with her father, Bronson Alcott; her mother, Abby May Alcott; and her older sister, Anna Bronson, age 1. In 1834, the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts. A year later, on June 24, 1835, her sister Abigail May was born. Also in Boston, her father founded the Temple School to "practice his theories of education, which involved tapping into children's intuitive knowledge through free expression" (ABC-CLIO). Unfortunately, the school failed
…show more content…
after six years, so the family moved to Concord, Massachusetts in 1840. Also that year, Alcott's youngest sister, May, was born. In Concord, they became neighbors and friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Louisa was nine years old when she started to be educated by her father, Emerson, and Thoreau. In 1843, her father unsuccessfully tried to found a utopian vegetarian community, called Fruitlands, which was near Harvard, Massachusetts. When her father failed to found Fruitlands, eleven year-old Louisa got a job as a teacher, a seamstress, and a domestic servant to help support her family.
She began to write for publication around 1848, which eventually became the family's support. While living in Concord, Elizabeth caught scarlet fever from an immigrant family. The family moved to Walpole, New Hampshire in 1855 in hopes that the move would help Elizabeth get better. Though they were out of the city, Elizabeth did not recover from the disease and died in December of 1858. In May of 1860, her older sister, Anna, married and moved out of the house in Walpole. With less people in the house and more room, Louisa had a room to write in, which also allowed her to concentrate on her work. Her name became known when she published Hospital Sketches (1863), which "recounted her experience as a volunteer nurse in a military hospital in Washington D.C. during the Civil War" (ABC-CLIO). While she served, she came down with typhoid fever. She was treated with mercury, which was the treatment at the time. This lead to mercury poisoning, an illness that weakened her physically for life. On March 6, 1888, Louisa May Alcott died at the age fifty-five. In her lifetime, Alcott wrote many novels, for children and adults, that are still read and enjoyed …show more content…
today. Over the span of Alcott's career, many of her books touched the hearts of many though some revived negative feedback. Her first book, Flower Fables, published in 1854, is a small collection of fairy tales. Hospital Sketches (1863) told the story of Alcott's experiences of a nurse during the Civil War. The Civil War had a huge impact on her, for there, thirty year old Alcott had the rest of her life decided for her when she caught typhoid fever and was treated with mercury. Her first novel, Moods (1864), was about an unsuccessful marriage. Two of the characters represented Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. These two had an enormous impact on Alcott's life, educating her and being there for her. The novel, Little Women (1868), recounted Alcott's life growing up, with each character representing someone important in her life. A short story, An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870), is about a young girl who does not fully fit in with everyone around her. She is made fun of, but in spite of all the teasing, she pushed through and makes the best of it. Three years after Little Women was published, Alcott published a sequel to the story. Little Men is about the boys at the school that Jo runs with her husband. However, Little Men did not receive as much praise as Little Women. Alcott's fourth novel, Work (1873), is about "the efforts of a poor girl to support herself by working as a seamstress, domestic servant, and a companion" (ABC-CLIO). This story seems to be about Alcott herself, who worked as a domestic servant and seamstress to support her family. This connection helps readers relate to Alcott's life. A year later, she wrote a memoir, Transcendental Wild Oats (1874), about her father's effort to successfully found Fruitlands.
This memoir revealed that Alcott really cared for her father and that her publishing books allowed her father to have food and a roof over his head. Alcott's next two novels, Eight Cousins (1875) and Rose in Bloom are about an orphan girl who goes to live with her six aunts and seven male cousins. Rose in Bloom tells the story of the same girl, older, who is trying to find her way in society. A Modern Mephistopheles (1877) is the story of a failed poet who makes a pact with the devil. Jack and Jill (1880) takes place in a town depicted from Alcott's home town, Concord. The story focuses on the adventures of three boys and three girls. "Three boys, Jack and Frank Minot, modeled after Alcott’s nephews John and Fred Pratt (the name Minot was one of their father’s family names) and Ed Devlin, transformed from Ellsworth Devens, whose death inspired Alcott to write the book" (The Other Juveniles). Alcott's last novel, Jo's Boys and How They Turned Out (1886), was very hard for her to write. Written fifteen years after Little Men, "the originals for Marmee, Amy, and Mr. Laurence were gone, so that writing about them simply renewed Alcott’s mourning for her mother, her sister, and Emerson" (The March Family Stories). All of Alcott's writings inspired others to keep pushing through life, even when things were rough. The Little Women series are stories that
people have connected to for years, which allows the name "Louisa May Alcott" be known. Alcott's most famous series, consisting of Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys and How They Turned Out, have been loved over the years and really draw the reader in to learn about the lives of the March sisters. Little Women is the first book in series and received reviews that gave it a four out of five rating. The other two books both received reviews that gave them a three point eight out of five. According to Critical Reception, some critics say that Little Women is "an ideologically purified and strained realism". However, according to The March Family Stories, "Little Women was an overnight success, not just with girls but with the reading public in general". Both critics have their own opinion on Little Women, one negative, one positive. Overall, critics thought Alcott to be "a writer of charming stories for children which show them both in happy situations and in problematic ones" (The March Family Stories). Though all of Alcott's works received fairly positive praise, Little Women and the books that followed received the most due to readers' appreciation to the connections that Alcott created. Little Women is Alcott's most remembered novel, with the characters representing someone special in her life.
Both Alcott and Hawthorne provide brilliant examples of feminists and both, though different, are perfect for showing the complexities of American women. While many women make their cause global, many others contain their goals locally, and both are worthy of supporting feminism. Zenobia and Hope stand as examples of inredible characters that provide a Victorian era with a view of womanhood not often noticed.
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks historically known as Rosa Parks, was born February 4,1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama and past away from natural causes at age 92, on October 24,2005 in Detroit, Michigan. Parks lived with her mother Leona McCauley and her father James McCauley. Ater on in 115 her brother was born Sylvester Parks her only sibling.Both of park’s parents worked, her mother was employed as a teacher and her father was employed as a carpenter . Some time later after Parks’s brother was born her mother and father separated. Once the separation was final, Parks moved with her mother to Pine Level, Alabama while her brother and father moved to Montgomery, Alabama. parks was homeschooled by her mother until age 11 and attended Industrial
... written by the children themselves, only a few of them seem to give any indication about how the children that wrote them felt about the work they were doing. In some case Rollings-Magnusson should have used fewer of these sources in some places if the children’s stories were very similar, as it makes the book feel repetitive and as a result can cause the reader to feel bored or lose interest. Despite this the more unique stories of girls doing work that may not usually be expected of them, such as ploughing, and the stories of boys who helped their mother with household chores make the book more interesting and almost supplement the more dull areas of the book.
According to the Internet Movie Database's exhaustive records, Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women" has seen itself recreated in four TV series, four made for TV movies and five feature length movies since 1918. The most recent version appeared in 1994 and features Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Samantha Mathis, Eric Stoltz, Susan Sarandon, and Gabriel Byrne. As a long time fan of the novel, who has happily carted her large leather bound gold-gilded unabridged edition whenever she has moved, I find that I was disappointed in this newest movie version. As a movie lover, however, I found the movie to be an enjoyable experience.
On June 14, 1811 Harriet Beecher Stowe was born. She came into this world with twelve siblings. When she was young she went to a public school and made friends. But sadly she moved to her sister’s school in first grade. In the summer at the age of five her mom died. At her sisters school she would write short stories in her free time. She went to that school from grade school to college. When she graduated she was very happy and continued her love for writing books.
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was a prominent American author who wrote over 30 books in her lifetime. She is greatly remembered for her book Hospital Sketches, which she wrote to home while serving as an army nurse during the Civil War. Growing up, her home was a stop on the Underground Railroad and this helped her realize the effects of slavery on these slaves. She wanted to help in any way she could. In December 1862, Alcott left for the Union hospital in Georgetown, outside of Washington, DC, to become a nurse. She had no formal training as a nurse and no formal training was required. The only requirements were to be sober minded, mature, and plain-looking.
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, was published in 1868 and follows the lives, loves, and troubles of the four March sisters growing up during the American Civil War.1 The novel is loosely based on childhood experiences Alcott shared with her own sisters, Anna, May, and Elizabeth, who provided the hearts of the novel’s main characters.2 The March sisters illustrate the difficulties of girls growing up in a world that holds certain expectations of the female sex; the story details the journeys the girls make as they grow to be women in that world. Figures 1 and 2 in the Appendix are of Orchard House, the basis for the March family home, where the Alcotts lived.
"Zora Neale Hurston is Born." history.com. A&E Television Networks, 7 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 Jan.
Little Women shows the independence of the March sisters, what actions make them independent, and how they become independent women. The Laurence and March family show every different kind of love in this story, from love of family to romance. The March girls and Laurie Laurence face challenges and are taught that, in the end, experiencing problems in life are there to teach them to learn from their past mistakes, ultimately helping them grow and make wiser choices in the future. Unbelievably different from when they were teenagers, Jo, Meg, Beth, Amy, and Laurie grow tremendously by learning happiness, love, and independence. In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott depicts female independence, love, and coming of age through the lives of the March family.
Watson, N. (2009) ‘Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868-9) Introduction’, in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University, pp.13-17
Librarians, parents, and teachers have all recommended the Little House books as wholesome fare for young readers. Many readers still admire the virtues exemplified in the books. Although the social environment is different than today’s social enviroment, Laura is easy to identify with, bridging the time gap (“Little House…” 802).The consistent point of view, strong sense of security, and delicate balance of the books brings praise from all of Wilder’s fans. Readers love that Wilder is able to give a dramatic truth to a book with the restraint of harsh language (Zochert 223). “This is the truth of the Little House books: the real things” (Zochert 224).
The majority of the first part of Little Women deals with the "deals with the autobiographical component", of Alcott’s life that is inserted into Little Women (MacDonald 10). Alcott and Jo are comparable in numerous ways. Both of the young women wanted "to do something splendid", before they were forgotten or too aged (Alcott 144). They relied on the support of their families and the lessons they had learned as young girls to benefit them as they rose to the top of the authorial society. Both women did not tend to care about the restrictions set before them and set a pathway for younger generations of women to come. The second part of the novel highlights the similarities between the authorial portions of the women’s lives. Jo goes "to New York", to accomplish her writing goals, while Alcott writes in Concord,Massachusetts, the city that Little Women occurred in (Alcott 323). Louisa 's and Jo 's similar climb upward to success showed how the women of the 19th century were "adjusting to changing times", and slowly breaking the molds of their traditional past (May 4). In writing her novel Little Women, Alcott tends to use "many of the incidents”, which “were taken from her own experiences", and impose them into the plot line (MacDonald 10). Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist, which she imposes as characteristics onto Jo March and somewhat onto Mrs.March. Her writing also allows the three sisters to be compelled by their family to experience their lives to the fullest, much similar to how Alcott’s family did to Louisa. The three sisters had a very meaningful relationship with each other, much like Alcott had with her three
This book is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It in a town in New England in the 1800’s. It about a family and the girls growing up during the 1800’s and the things they have to face. The growing pains that all girls have to go through even now. This was a very sad book at the end when Beth dies.
http://www.gale.com/gale/. 144. The. Print. The. Janeway, Elizabeth. A. “Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, and Louisa.”
...father since her mother’s passing, and on March 4, 1888 her father, Bronson Alcott passed away.