Louisa May Alcott: Daughter, Author, and Transcendentalist

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While Louisa May Alcott is most often identified as an author, she also was a dedicated daughter and sister, a Transcendentalist, and an inspiration. Part of the reason that Louisa May Alcott stands out is because of her interesting family, career, and medical history.

Born on November 29, 1832 to Bronson Alcott and Abigail May in Germantown, Pennsylvania, Louisa May Alcott was brought up in an unconventional home. For most of her life, Alcott resided in Boston, Concord, and Harvard, Massachusetts. As was par with the times, she did not have a formal education. Instead, she was home schooled and taught mostly by her Transcendentalist father, a “tall, handsome young schoolteacher with radical ideas” who “had little notion of how to support a family” (Goodwin). As a result, Alcott spent most of her childhood in a state of relative poverty, because her father put money into projects and experiments that were much more idealistic than realistic. Alcott took it upon herself to supplement her family’s income and she accomplished this by working as a seamstress, a household servant, and a teacher (Gribben 338).

Early on in her life, Louisa May Alcott expressed a penchant for writing. Themes of her writing included transcendentalism, family, responsibility, charity, sacrifice, and feminism. Although she was a transcendentalist, the most blatant theme is actually feminism. She was also influenced by friends of the Alcott family, including noted Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and William Ellery Channing. The aforesaid people inspired her to continue writing (Gribben 338).

In continuing her writing, Louisa May Alcott kept a journal, in which she expressed he...

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In conclusion, the motivated girl turned influential inspiration became one of the most famous women in history through her literature, albeit she had some trouble in getting started in her chosen industry. While Louisa May Alcott is most often identified as an author, she also was a dedicated daughter and sister, a Transcendentalist, and an inspiration. Part of the reason that Louisa May Alcott stands out is because of her interesting family, career, and medical history, but undeniably, the masterpieces she constructed in the form of prose will keep the memory of this outstanding woman alive for as long as persons on this earth can read literature, understand the context in which it was written, and truly comprehend Louisa May Alcott’s purpose for writing.

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