Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | Louisa May Alcott: The Breadwinner | 2

Imagine its April 1854 in Boston, and you're in the offices of your publishing company,

Tickner & Fields.

Fatigue is getting the better of you as you sit at your desk, tapping your fingers against

the worn wooden surface.

All morning you've been working your way through a stack of manuscripts, but so far nothing's

caught your interest.

A young woman pulls back the heavy green curtain that separates you from your assistant.

She wears a plain dress, and her dark hair is pinned back neatly.

You recognize her as Luisa, the daughter of your friend, Bronson Alcut.

Ah, Miss Alcut, please have a seat.

You gesture toward the chair on the other side of your desk.

She sits down, smiling nervously.

Thank you, sir.

What brings you here today?

I've brought an essay for your consideration.

You nod, wearily, stealing yourself to evaluate the work of a friend's daughter.

You never expected her to visit your office unannounced.

Ah, I see.

Well, man it over.

With trembling hands, she hands you several handwritten pages.

It's about the seven weeks I spent working as a companion and servant to an elderly man

and his invalid daughter.

The work was grueling, and my employer expected me to spend hours each day fawning over him.

Well, after seven terrible weeks, I was only paid $4.

It was a miserable experience, but I thought it would make for a good essay.

You begin skimming the essay.

The writing is earnest, but it lacks authority.

It strikes you that it's a little more than a list of complaints.

You put the essay down, take a deep breath.

Get to your teaching, Miss Allcut.

You can't write.

She looks at you with disbelief.

You didn't even read it properly.

Please, you must read the whole piece before you deliver your verdict.

I'm sorry.

I've worked in the business long enough to know when something has potential, and when

it doesn't.

Please reconsider.

I appreciate the courage it took to come here today and share your work.

But writing is a challenging craft.

Everyone has the necessary skill.

I'm sure you have other strengths.

She stands abruptly, looking down at you with fire in her eyes.

I can write, and I'm going to prove it to you.

She walks out of your office, surprising you with her determination.

You're left wondering if there's more to this young woman than meets the eye.

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From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham.

And this is American History Tellers, Our History, Your Story.

In the spring of 1854, 21-year-old aspiring writer Louisa May Alcott submitted an essay

to editor and publisher James T. Fields.

After a quick review, Fields told her that she had no future as a writer, but Alcott refused

to give up.

Alcott was raised in a vibrant community of writers and reformers who shaped her literary

ambitions.

Burdened by her family's overwhelming financial struggles, she turned to writing as an escape

at a young age.

Over the course of her life, Alcott would write hundreds of short stories, poems, and essays,

but it was her beloved 1868 novel Little Women that propelled her to fame.

Starting from her own experiences growing up with three sisters in Concord, Massachusetts,

Alcott filled her novel with realistic and relatable female characters grappling with the

constraints of society's expectations.

In a time of strict gender roles, Alcott charted an independent path for her life and her

work and broadened the scope of American literature in the process.

This is episode two in our six-part series on Great American Authors, The Breadwinner.

Louise and May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832 in German town, Pennsylvania.

She was the second daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott, a progressive educator and Abigail May,

who was called Abba.

Abba came from a long line of prominent new Englanders, including the Quinces and Sewells.

Her husband Bronson was the eccentric, self-educated son of a poor farmer.

The Alcott struggled financially, but they shared high-minded ideals.

As Louise grew up, she was immersed in discussions about philosophy, education, and social

and political reform.

In 1834, the Alcuts moved to Boston, and Bronson opened the Experimental Temple School,

where he taught the sons and daughters of Boston's elites.

In Boston, Bronson joined the Transcendentalist Club, and befriended the writers and philosophers

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller.

Transcendentalism was a spiritual and literary movement that spread throughout New England

in the 1830s.

Followers believed that individuals could find God within themselves by communing with nature,

rather than through the church.

They emphasized individual intuition, self-reliance, and the inherent goodness of people.

Bronson applied this philosophy to his teaching methods.

At a time when most classrooms focused on lectures and memorization, he believed in

engaging his students in conversation to help them discover knowledge themselves.

But his unorthodox approach sparked controversy.

When parents found out that he was discussing religion and sex with his students, many

pulled their children from the school.

When Bronson admitted a black girl to his classroom in 1839, outraged white parents withdrew

most of the remaining students, and he was forced to close the Temple School for good.

In 1840, the Alcuts moved 16 miles west to rural Concord, Massachusetts, where Ralph

Waldo Emerson rented them a rundown cottage.

In Concord, Emerson was creating a vibrant literary community, home to Henry David Thoreau,

Margaret Fuller, and author Nathaniel Hawthorne.

It would become the center of the transcendentalist movement and hotbed of anti-slavery activism.

By the time the Alcuts arrived in Concord, they had four daughters, Anna, Luisa, Lizzie,

and May.

Eight-year-old Luisa loved running free in Concord's Meadows, taking walks through the woods

with Thoreau, emballrolling books from Emerson's library.

In Concord, Bronson attempted to farm, but his efforts failed to provide enough earnings.

The family lived in poverty, so much so that Emerson would secretly leave money behind

when he visited their cottage.

The family subsisted on little more than sugar, bread, potatoes, apples, and squash.

Still, Luisa later reflected, those Concord days were the happiest of my life.

In the spring of 1842, Bronson traveled to England to visit a group of transcendentalists

who had founded a school based on his methods.

He invited one of his English followers, a man named Charles Lane, to come live with

his family.

In September, Bronson, Lane, and Lane's son sailed back to Massachusetts.

But after moving into the Alcuts' tiny cottage, Lane quickly usurped power in the household.

He forced Luisa and her sisters to take cold, sunrise baths and study under his tutelage,

and he treated their mother Abba like a servant.

Bronson admired Lane's intellect so much that he was blind to his faults.

As a result, the Alcuts' marriage suffered.

In November, Abba wrote in her journal, I am almost suffocated in this atmosphere of

restriction and gloom.

This is an invasion of my rights as a woman and a mother.

Luisa, now ten years old, tried to escape Lane's tyranny by writing poetry and fantastical

stories.

The following summer, the Alcuts and Lane's packed their belongings in a horse-drawn

carriage and moved twelve miles west to a rundown farmhouse in Harvard, Massachusetts.

There, Lane and Alcuts founded a utopian community they named Fruitlands.

Lane advocated abstinence and banned private property, meat, and the use of animal labor.

Roughly a dozen adults joined the community, crowding into a farmhouse that Abba compared

to a pigsty.

Luisa and her three sisters lived in an attic crawl space surrounding the chimney.

Bronson, Lane, and their followers spent long stretches of time away from the farm, visiting

like minute communities.

And while Bronson focused on philosophy, the difficult work of running the farm fell

to Abba and her daughters.

After six miserable months, Abba reached a breaking point.

Imagine it's a bitterly cold night in December 1843 in Harvard, Massachusetts.

You, your husband Bronson, and your four daughters are gathered around the stove in the kitchen

of Fruitlands, the farming commune where you've been living the past six months.

You've just finished cleaning up a poultry dinner, a bread, and carrots.

You've had growing doubts about this arrangement, and you feel you can no longer stay silent.

Take off your apron, slump into a chair.

It's over, Bronson.

Against my better judgment, I followed your lead.

But I can't do this anymore.

The girls and I are leaving.

Bronson stares at you incredulously.

Leaving?

Where will you go?

My brother helped me rent rooms three miles down the road and still river.

We'll pack up the furniture this week and be on our way.

I don't understand.

While you're searching for divinity and transcendence,

who do you think is doing the cooking?

The cleaning, harvesting, the crops?

How could you blindside me like this?

I don't know what you expected.

You call this a new Eden?

Look at your daughters.

You point to your daughters who are huddling for warmth by the fire.

Their clothes are dirty and ragged.

Your second eldest, Louisa, locks eyes with you.

Her face is stricken with fear.

Louisa's been sick for weeks.

We barely have anything decent to eat.

Is this really how you want to raise our children?

I told you this would take time.

I thought you shared my ideals.

Yes, but while you've been focused on ideals,

I've been focused on survival.

The girls and I have been worked to the bone,

trying to keep this place running.

The soil here is no good.

And do you realize how hard it is to do farm labor without any draft animals?

But of course, Mr. Lane believes that using animal labor is immoral.

We're trying to build something here.

Things will get better.

I can't leave and let the others down.

If you stay, you'll be letting your family down.

So will you join us?

Or will you stay here with Mr. Lane?

Ronson crumbles in his seat and turns to face the wall.

You feel certain he'll follow you if he wants to stay in the family.

But from now on, you won't allow his pursuit of lofty ideals

to cause your children to suffer.

On December 10, 1843, Abba confronted Bronson,

forcing him to choose between fruitlands and their family.

That night, 11-year-old Luisa wrote in her diary,

in the eve of father and mother and Anna and I had a long talk.

I was very unhappy, and we all cried.

Anna and I cried in bed, and I prayed to God to keep us together.

In January, Bronson relented and joined his wife and daughters

when they abandoned fruitlands for the nearby village of Stil River.

They spent the next several months recuperating from their ordeal.

Later that year, the all-cuts returned to Concord,

with help from Emerson and a family inheritance.

The all-cuts purchased a homestead in Concord,

which they named Hillside.

And for the first time, Luisa had a room of her own.

Luisa loved her father, but she witnessed his idealism

fail her and her sisters.

After leaving fruitlands, Abba took charge of the family.

As Luisa entered her teenage years in Hillside,

she resisted pressures to conform to feminine ideals

or prepare herself for marriage, unwilling to allow a husband

to dictate her future.

She wrote in her journal,

it does me good to be alone.

I've made a plan for my life as I am in my teens

and no more a child.

I'm old for my age and don't care much for girls' things.

People think I'm wild and queer,

but mother understands and helps me.

Luisa inherited her mother's fiery temperament

and strong work ethic and the pair shared a close bond.

Abba nurtured her daughter's ambitions,

encouraging her to write.

Luisa was the clear leader among her sisters.

She was tall and dark-haired,

and she was adventurous, prone to climbing trees

and taking dares.

After she and her sisters spent an afternoon

trampling through the woods, ruining their clothes,

Luisa wrote,

we are dreadful wild people here in Concord.

We do all the sinful things you can think of.

But she was notorious for her bad temper.

A friend remembered,

when she got mad, she could be severe.

When she wasn't outside,

she spent her days writing poetry,

wandering through Emerson's library

and acting out elaborate plays with her sisters.

She dreamed of becoming a famous writer or actress.

During this time,

she was also exposed to abolitionism.

In the 1840s,

the national debate over slavery was intensifying

and thousands of enslaved people escaped bondage

by fleeing to the north.

Abba and Bronson were active in several anti-slavery societies

and they occasionally sheltered runaway slaves at hillside.

But Bronson was chronically unemployed,

prioritizing his intellectual interests over making money.

He spent his time renovating the property

and cultivating flour and vegetable gardens.

To pay for living expenses,

Abba and her daughters taught and took in sewing,

but they struggled with a lack of steady income.

When some of Abba's Boston friends visited her,

they were so shocked by her reduced circumstances

that they arranged a job for her as a social worker in Boston.

So in the fall of 1848,

the Alkuts rented out hillside and moved back to Boston.

While Bronson focused on his intellectual pursuits,

Abba went to work caring for the influx

of poor Irish immigrants entering the city.

What her new job did little to alleviate

her family's financial struggles.

The weasel later wrote,

we found ourselves in a small house in the south end

with not a tree in sight.

I was left to keep house,

feeling like a cage seagull as I washed dishes and cooked.

The weasel felt a strong sense of responsibility

for her family's well-being,

and she took on various jobs,

including spending seven weeks as a house servant.

The strain of city life weighed heavily on her.

In May, 1850, she wrote,

every day is a battle,

and I am so tired I don't want to live.

Only it's cowardly to die until you have done something.

I know God is always ready to hear

what heaven's so far away in the city.

The city also took a physical toll on the all-cuts.

Later that summer,

the entire family came down with smallpox.

They eventually recovered,

but their finances continued to worsen.

Once again,

Luisa turned to writing as an escape.

In September, 1851,

a woman's magazine published her poem entitled Sunlight.

She was paid $5 in return.

It was the first time,

18-year-old Luisa made money as a writer.

In 1852, the all-cuts were rescued from their misery

when Nathaniel Hawthorne purchased hillside from them.

The money from the sale saved the family from financial ruin

and even allowed them to move into a nicer home in Boston.

Still, Luisa dreamed of earning enough money

from writing to support her family.

Starting in late 1852,

she began writing pulp thrillers in her spare time,

publishing them in magazines under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard.

She called them blood and thunder tales,

declaring them easy to compose and better paid

than moral and elaborate works.

But she was desperate to write more serious work

and she hungered for wealth, fame and recognition.

In the spring of 1854,

when she was 21 years old,

she visited James T. Fields,

a well-known and respected editor

who had published Hawthorne's novel,

The Scarlet Letter, four years earlier.

Luisa showed him a memoir as she had written

about her time as a house-erent.

It was entitled How I Went Out to Service.

Fields rejected the piece outright,

telling her,

stick to your teaching, Miss Alcat.

You can't write.

She would remember those words for the rest of her life,

rather than discouraging her, however.

Fields harsh response lit a fire under her.

She was determined to prove him wrong.

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After publisher James T. Fields told the Weezamay

Alcat She Could Not Write, she refused to give up.

A few months later, in December of 1854,

she managed to convince another publisher

to bring out her first book, Flower Fables.

It was a collection of stories about fairies, elves,

and animals she had written when she was 16

to amuse Ralph Waldo Emerson's young daughter.

1600 copies were published, and Alcat noted its soul very well.

Still, she was frustrated to receive only $35

for her efforts.

In 1855, the Alcuts moved to New Hampshire,

but the now 22-year-old Luizas stayed behind a Boston

to pursue her literary career.

In New Hampshire, her younger sister, Luizas,

contracted scarlet fever from a poor family

she was helping her mother care for.

She suffered from a rash, fever, vomiting, and hair loss.

She eventually recovered, but the illness left her permanently

weak.

In 1857, the Alcat family returned to Concord,

where Emerson purchased a new home for them to live in,

a two-story farmhouse named Orchard House.

Bronson Alcat began renovating what he hoped

would finally be a permanent residence

for his nomadic family.

But the next year brought major upheaval

for Luizas and the Alcuts.

In January, Lizzie's lingering illness took a turn

for the worse.

A doctor told the family there was no hope of recovering,

a wasting disease ravaged her body,

making her look much older than her 22 years.

Luizas often stayed by her sister's bedside

during the night, keeping watch.

But on March 14th, Lizzie finally succumbed

to her illness and died.

Luizas wrote, she is well, at last.

Three weeks later, her older sister Anna

announced that she was engaged to a local farmer named John Pratt.

Luizas wrote that she felt she was losing a second sister,

confiding in her journal, another sister is gone.

I moaned in private over my great loss

and said I'd never forgive John for taking Anna from me.

And Luizas had no interest in sharing Anna's fate.

She would later write, I'd rather be a free spinster

and paddle my own canoe.

But the twin losses of Lizzie and Anna

overwhelmed her with feelings of loneliness and despair.

Following her 26th birthday in November 1858,

she reflected, these experiences have taken a depold

and changed or developed me.

I am learning that work of head in hand is my salvation

when disappointment or weariness burden

or dark in my soul.

That went her as she returned to Boston

and took comfort in her work,

resuming sewing, teaching, and submitting stories

for publication.

She felt a strong sense of duty to earn money

for her family writing, I seem to be the only breadwinner

just now.

Around this time, Bronson Alket encouraged his daughter

to submit a story to the prestigious magazine, Atlantic Monthly.

He personally delivered a manuscript

of her short story, Love and Self Love,

to editor James Russell Lowell.

It was a melodramatic love story

featuring an orphan teenage girl.

Lowell accepted the story, though another year would pass

before he published it.

Feeling encouraged, Luizas began working

on her first serious novel.

In title Moods, it was a coming of age tale

about an impetuous young woman

who embarked on an ill-fated marriage.

Throughout 1860, Luizas was so consumed with writing moods

that she often forgot to eat or sleep.

Still, she found time to earn money

by churning out her blood and thunder stories

under her pseudonym.

While Luizas focused on her literary career,

the nation was hurtling toward war.

In July 1860, the Alcuts took in the family of John Brown

after the radical abolitionists had been executed

for attempting to start a slave rebellion.

When the Civil War broke out in April 1861,

Luizas joined throngs of people in the streets of Boston,

waving goodbye to volunteer soldiers.

She wrote, I long to be a man, but as I can't fight,

I will content myself working for those who can.

By the winter of 1862, the war had dragged on

for longer than anyone imagined it would.

Luizas was restless.

Desperate to do more for the war effort,

she applied to work as a nurse at a Union Army hospital

in Washington, D.C.

She traveled south in December 1862,

just as the Union Army was waging an ill-fated assault

on well-entrenched Confederate forces

in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

The battle ended in a crushing union defeat

and heavy casualties on both sides.

Just as she began work in Washington,

45 miles north of Fredericksburg,

hundreds of wounded and dying Union soldiers

were arriving from the battlefield.

Imagine it's early in the morning on December 16th, 1862,

in Washington, D.C.

You're in a hotel turn Union Army hospital

and today marks your first full day

as a volunteer army nurse.

You're in a large, dimly lit ward,

pouring water for the injured men

who lie asleep in a row of narrow beds.

As you turn and open a window to ventilate the room,

you feel a rush of excitement

for the adventure you're starting.

As you look outside to the dusty street,

you see a mass of horse-drawn carts.

You briefly wonder if they're setting up a food market,

but then your stomach lurches

as you realize the carts are carrying more injured soldiers.

You there.

You turn around to see the stern head nurse, Mrs. Stevens,

standing in the doorway.

Yes, Miss.

Start gathering bed linens, water, and sponges.

Quickly now, we've got 40 ambulances at the door.

Mrs. Stevens rushes out into the hallway.

You find yourself paralyzed

as you watch soldier after soldier burst into the room.

Some work in pairs, hauling men on stretchers,

others stagger in on makeshift crutches.

Some are horribly maimed.

Missing arms and legs, you suddenly feel dizzy.

You back away from the chaos

and take refuge behind a pile of clothing and bandages.

What do you think you're doing?

You look up to see a Mrs. Stevens staring down at you.

You tremble under the weight of her stern gaze.

I was just...

You see, you were hiding.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm sorry.

It's my first day.

This is no place for the fainted heart.

These men need help.

Get up and get to work.

Yes, ma'am.

You stand up on shaky legs and look around,

feeling overwhelmed.

Mrs. Stevens lets out an impatient sigh.

I need you to undress them in as fast as you can.

Scrub them down and dress them in clean clothes.

They're caked with mud and filth from the battlefield.

You rise widen.

You've never seen a naked man before.

You steal yourself, the nod.

Yes, ma'am.

She grabs a water basin, a sponge, a towel,

and a block of brown soap from the shelf behind you

that stuff the supplies in your arms.

Work quickly.

These men have no time for hesitation.

If infection sets in, they could die.

Come find me when you're done.

She rushes off.

Blinking back tears, you approach a middle-aged soldier

lying in a cot.

His head is bandaged.

The cloth is soaked with blood and dirt.

With trembling hands, you begin

to gently remove the bandage.

He winces and offers a faint smile and gratitude

that strengthens your resolve.

All could's first day of nursing

gave her a quick introduction to the horrors of war.

She would later write,

my ardor experienced a sudden chill,

and I indulged in a most unpatriotic wish

that I was safe at home again with a quiet day before me.

Despite initially losing her nerve,

she quickly became a competent nurse

and grew close with many of the men she cared for.

But the emotional and physical toll was severe.

Like many other army nurses, she succumbed to illness.

Her symptoms started with a cough

then progressed to delusional fever dreams.

She was hospitalized for pneumonia and typhoid fever.

Doctors treated her with calumel,

a drug that was widely used

despite the fact it contained mercury.

So even as she recovered from typhoid,

she suffered from mercury poisoning.

In late January 1863, following six weeks in Washington,

she returned to Concord as a weakened version

of her former self.

For the rest of her life,

she would suffer from debilitating headaches,

dizziness, exhaustion, and pain.

Still, she would later write,

the amount of pleasure and profit

I got out of that month compensates for all the pangs.

And her nursing stint marked a turning point

in her writing career.

During her time in the army hospital,

she wrote vivid letters home about her experiences.

Publisher James Redpath encouraged her

to compile the letters into a book.

He paid $200 for the collection,

publishing it later that year under the title,

Hospital Sketches.

To all costs, surprise, the book sold well

and earned her a claim.

She wrote, I find I've done a good thing

without knowing it.

For the first time, multiple publishers sought out

her writing, including James Fields,

the editor who rejected her a decade earlier.

In October 1863, she wrote,

there is a sudden hoist for a meek and lowly scribbler

who was told to stick to her teaching.

The following January,

Luisa returned to her work on moods.

She loved the novel more than anything else

she would write over the course of her life,

and she often skipped meals and stayed up all night

to work on it.

In February 1864,

she submitted a manuscript to James Redpath.

She was devastated when he asked her

to cut the novel in half.

Rather than heed his advice,

she decided to look for a different publisher.

She continued shopping the manuscript,

but much to her disappointment,

another publisher agreed it was too long.

Finally, in October, she figured out

how to cut down her novel without destroying it.

She spent a week feverishly removing 10

out of 30 chapters.

Moods was finally published in December 1864,

but to mixed reviews.

Henry James, who would later become a famous author,

wrote, we are utterly weary of stories

about precocious little girls.

Criticism of the novel of Set Luisa.

She complained, I followed bad advice

and took out many things which explained my idea.

In July 1865, all cut received an opportunity

to travel abroad for the first time.

A wealthy Boston ship owner asked her to travel to Europe

as the paid companion to his invalid daughter.

In London, she relished visiting sites

from the novels of Charles Dickens

and hearing Dickens himself speak.

In Germany, she delighted in the beauty of the Alps

and the Ryan River.

She was less enamored by the long and tedious stays

at Hellspons.

She returned conquered after a year abroad.

Her family's bills had gone unpaid in her absence,

so she got down to work,

spending the rest of 1866 writing and publishing

12 news stories, but the work sapped her strength.

In January 1867, she collapsed from exhaustion.

For much of that spring, she was too ill to write.

The following September, all cut accepted an offer

to become the editor of a Boston Children's magazine

called Mary's Museum for $500 a year.

Around the same time, publisher Thomas Niles noticed a gap

in the literary market.

He suggested all cut write a book for young girls.

All cut said she would try, but privately,

she resented the idea.

She did not see herself as a children's author.

She had experienced war, illness, family tragedy,

and poverty, and she wanted to write serious mature work.

But Niles kept up the pressure,

even promising All Cut's father, Bronson,

that he would publish his manuscript tablets

if she wrote the book for young girls.

Bronson had high hopes for tablets,

a collection of his thoughts on gardening,

recreation, and friendship.

So he encouraged Louisa to agree to write the girls' book

so his own manuscript would be published.

And in February, 1868, Louisa finally broke down.

She quit her editor job and returned home to Concord

to write the book she did not want to write.

As she began to draft the novel, she never anticipated,

just how much it would change her life.

In May 1868, Louisa May All Cut sat down in Orchard House

and Concord to write a book for young girls.

She had written melodramas and a so-called serious novel.

Now she turned her focus to the ordinary and every day,

crafting a coming-of-age novel about four sisters

growing into young women.

It was a semi-autobiographed book,

which was published in the book,

which was published in the book,

which was published in the book,

which was published in the book.

It was a semi-autobiographical account of her own childhood

with her sisters in Concord.

She titled the book Little Women.

In May 1868, she wrote in her journal,

I plod away, though I don't enjoy this sort of thing.

I've never liked girls or knew many except my sisters.

Our experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it.

The four Alkat sisters inspired the four fictional March sisters.

Ana Alket became beautiful Meg March.

Lizzie became the shy and sickly Beth.

Beth, Mae became headstrong Amy, and Luisa became the rebellious and outspoken Tomboy Joe,

the novel's protagonist. Like the teenage Luisa, Joe March was an aspiring writer. Despite

these similarities, Alcat created an idealized version of her own life and writing little

women. Mr. March was a gainfully employed chaplain, who was absent for most of the novel. The

Marches had a maid to do the cooking and cleaning that in real life fell to Alcat and her sisters.

When Alcat sent her publisher Thomas Niles the first twelve chapters, he called the novel

Dull, and Alcat agreed. But then Niles showed the opening chapters to his twelve-year-old

niece who loved them. Alcat pushed through her ongoing illness and exhaustion, finishing

the novel just two and a half months after starting it. Niles offered her a choice between

a $1,000 flat fee for the rights to the book, or a $300 advance, with 6% royalties on

each copy sold. She chose the royalty arrangement. When proofs of the book arrived in late August,

she wrote, it reads better than I expected, not a bit sensational, but simple and true,

for we really lived most of it, and if it succeeds, that will be the reason of it. On September

30, 1868, little women was published to why to claim. It was an instant success, quickly

selling out its first printing of two thousand copies. Niles asked Alcat to start writing

a second volume. As she went to work, her opinions about marriage brought her into conflict

with her readers. Dozens of young women wrote to Alcat, urging her to marry Joe to the handsome

boy next door, Laurie. She complained in her journal, girls write to ask who the little

women marry, as if that was the only aim and end of a woman's life. I won't marry

Joe to Laurie to please anyone. On New Year's Day, 1869, Alcat submitted the manuscript

for part two of Little Women. She hoped that the second volume would do as well as the

first, but she dare not send her expectations too high.

Imagine this April, 1869 in Boston. You're an editor and publisher at the Roberts Brothers

Publishing House. The office is a whirlwind of activity this morning. Inpatient stockboys

and porters crowd the entrance, and the office floor and the sidewalk outside are piled

high with cases of books. You've retreated behind your cluttered desk to track inventory,

meticulously jaunting down numbers in your ledger. You appear someone approach, but you

waved them away impatiently, too busy to be disturbed. Not now. I'm sorry to interrupt.

You glance up and nearly jump out of your seat. The Weezamay Alcat is standing on the

other side of your desk. She wears a shabby, faded dress, and her face is filled with

concern. Oh, my dear Miss Alcat, my apologies. You got my letter then. I came to discuss

payment for the second volume of Little Women. What letter? It's no matter now. I'm sorry

to keep you waiting. As you can tell, it's been a busy morning. All-chit nod sympathetically.

How awful to see the publishing house in this condition. I'm sorry. What do you mean?

You gestures to the piles of boxes lining the walls. All this commotion. It looks as though

you're going out of business and all your inventory is being seized to pay off back debts.

Oh, you couldn't be more wrong. I don't understand. All these books are orders of the second volume

of Little Women. But it's not even out yet. Isn't it amazing? I've already sold 4,000 copies.

I expect to sell another 10,000 before the month is over. You must be joking. I've never seen

anything like it. Forget Uncle Tom's cabin. This is the triumph of the century. You open a drawer

and pull out a checkbook. Name a figure, and it's yours. Your royalties for part two are going to be

bigger than anything we could have predicted. You've just turned this pokey publishing house around.

You fill out a check in her name. She stares at you blankly. Come on. What will it be?

$1,000? Done. You sign the check and hand it to her. She looks at the number and wide-eyed disbelief.

All this from a girl's book? What did I tell you? You shake her hand, smiling in your shared

triumph. Despite pressuring her to write Little Women, its success has surpassed your wildest

expectations. Part 2 of Little Women was published on April 14, 1869. By the end of May,

17,000 copies have been sold. Little Women catapulted all cut to fame and fortune. She was finally

able to pay off her family's many debts, writing, I feel as if I could die in peace. Still,

much of her day-to-day life remained the same. She continued writing short stories and struggling

with her poor health. In 1870, she followed up Little Women with her novel Old Fashion Girl,

which was also a hit. In April 1870, all cut in her sister May traveled to Europe. This time,

she was a celebrated literary icon rather than a paid servant. While she was gone, she learned

about the death of her brother-in-law, John Pratt. She was inspired to write a book for his and Anna's

sons, a sequel to Little Women called Little Men. Over the next several years, all cut continued

traveling and publishing novels, but she was often too sick to enjoy her fame and financial

stability. She wrote, When I had the youth, I had no money. Now I have the money, I have no time,

and when I get the time, if I ever do, I shall have no health to enjoy life. She often

resented her obligations to her family. After buying her sister Anna, a home in the spring of 1877,

she wrote, All to be contented with knowing I help both my sisters by my brains. But I am selfish,

and I want to go away and rest in Europe, never shall. She also cared for her ailing mother.

In November 1877, Abba died in her daughter's arms. Despite her many duties, her fame had given

her a level of freedom afforded to few women of her era. All cut became active in the movements

for prison reform and women's suffrage. She wrote essays for a prominent women's rights magazine

and encouraged women in her hometown of Concord to join the cause. She wrote in her journal,

Drove about and drummed up women to my suffrage meeting. So hard to move people out of the old

ruts. In 1879, she became the first woman in Concord to register to vote. In December 1879,

her younger sister Mae died from complications from giving birth. All could adopted her niece Lulu

while also taking care of her sick father, Bronson, and her own illness worsened. She suffered

from fainting spells, vertigo, fatigue, and digestive issues. Still, she wrote whenever she could.

In 1886, she published Joe's Boys, the third volume in the March Trilogy. It mirrored All could's

own life by delving into Joe March's struggle to accept her literary fame. But by 1888,

she was writing little beyond short journal entries recording her symptoms.

She suffered from hallucinations and struggle to eat solid food, lumps appeared on her body.

On March 1st, 1888, she visited her father on his deathbed. He said,

I'm going up, come with me. She responded, I wish I could. Bronson died three days later.

But Luisa had fallen into a coma before she even heard the news. She died on March 6th,

1888, at the age of 55. Father and daughter were buried next to each other in Concord's famous

sleepy hollow cemetery near the graves of their family friends, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David

and Nathaniel Hawthorne. After her death, All could was memorialized as the children's friend.

The New York Times declared it was no bar to her conquests over the hearts of the young.

But her legacy was far greater than her popularity among young readers. All could chart it an

independent life in defiance of 19th century societal expectations. Her writing gave her a voice in

the world, the freedom to travel, and the ability to support her family as a single woman.

She created a beloved classic of American literature with nuanced female characters

who sought fulfillment beyond the confines of traditional gender roles. Through her life and her art,

she defied convention and expanded the realm of what was possible for American women.

From Wondry, this is episode two of our six-part series Great American Authors from American

History Tellers. On the next episode, in 1857, 21-year-old Samuel Clemens becomes an apprentice

steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, he

moves to the Nevada Territory and works as a reporter, adopting a pen name that would become

famous Mark Twain. American History Tellers is hosted, edited and produced by me Lindsey Graham

for airship, audio editing by Christian Paraga, sound design by Molly Bach, music by Lindsey Graham,

voice acting by Cat Peoples and Joe Hernandez Kulski. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton,

edited by Dorian Marina, produced by Alita Rizansky, ordinating producer Tessie Blaylock,

managing producer Matt Gantt, senior managing producer Ryan Lawre, senior producer Andy Herman,

executive producers Arjeni Lauer Beckman and Marsha Louis for Wondry.

Follow American History Tellers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to all episodes of American History Tellers ad-free by joining Audible,

and to find out more about me and my other projects, including my live stage show coming to a

theater near you, go to NotThatLinseyGram.com. That's NotThatLinseyGram.com.