Profile of the Day: Louisa May Alcott

On November 29, 1832, American author Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

Image: Louisa May Alcott / Library of Congress

Raised by transcendentalist parents, the Little Women author grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. When the family fell on hard times, Alcott was forced to work various jobs at an early age, such as a teacher, domestic servant, and writer, to help support her family. She later volunteered as a nurse in a Union hospital during the American Civil War, but contracted typhoid and returned home. Although her time as a nurse was brief, it inspired her to write Hospital Sketches, a series published in Boston’s anti-slavery newspaper, Commonwealth, about her experiences during the war.

In 1868, Alcott published the first volume of Little Women, a coming-of-age story based on Alcott’s life growing up with her sisters. The second volume was published in 1869. The novel was an immediate commercial and critical success and spawned a demand for more. Alcott would write two sequels to the work, Little Men and Jo’s Boys.

Alcott died of a stroke on March 6, 1888 at the age of 55, two days after the death of her father. She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery on a hillside known as “Author’s Ridge.”

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