Louisa M Alcott

As a young girl, Louisa  was forced to take jobs, to help the family’s finances.  Her mother also took paid employment which was unusual at the time…but Bronson seemed to be unable to take on the usual male role of breadwinner.  Louisa could see that if she and her sisters did not do soemthing, the family would go on in dire poverty.   She was devoted to her family,  and wanted to keep them all together and to look after her Mother. 

She had a passion for writing though and was always “scribbling.”  She took jobs as housemaid, governess and seamstress. But she hoped to make some real money at her writing.

During the Civil war she was a nurse, but her health failed and she had to give it up.  She did produce a book in 1863, called Hospital Sketches about her nursing experience, which got her some attention.  She wrote a novel “Moods” which also sold but it wasn’t till a few years later in 1868 that she wrote “Little Women” which gained her the popularity and financial rewards that she had hoped for.   She followed up with 3 more books about the March family which was loosely based on her own family. 

Her sister Lizzie had died (as Beth had) but in 1870 Louisa and her sister May (the original of Amy) took a trip to Europe. 

May was artistic and wanted to study European Art. 

Louisa continued to write and to look after her aging parents… trying to make her mother’s life more comfortable.   She herself was often ill due to mercury poisoning; she had been given calomel during her illness during the War and it contained mercury.  She worked hard at her writing, which was still very popular.  She grew a bit tired of the March family but continued to write the March novels.  She also was an ardent supporter of Votes for Women and (like Jo March) Temperance Reform, since she disapproved of drinking alcohol.

Later on, in the late 1870s, May March fell in love with a young man whom she married, but she died after the birth of her baby, Louisa May Nieriker (called Lulu). Louisa Alcott undertook the care of her little niece and brought her back to Boston to live.