Born in Connecticut in 1799, Alcott had only minimal formal schooling before attempting a career as a traveling salesman.

Alcott married Abby May in 1830 and they eventually had four surviving children, all daughters.

At age 17, Alcott passed the exam for a teaching certificate but had trouble finding work as a teacher.

Alcott had been influenced by educational philosophy of the Swiss pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and even renamed his school " The Cheshire Pestalozzi School ". His style attracted the attention of Samuel Joseph May, who introduced Alcott to his sister Abby May.

While working on a second book, Alcott and Peabody had a falling out and Conversations with Children on the Gospels was prepared with help from Peabody's sister Sophia, published at the end of December 1836.

Alcott was rejected by most public opinion and, by the summer of 1837, he had only 11 students left and no assistant after Margaret Fuller moved to Providence, Rhode Island.

The controversy had caused many parents to remove their children and, as the school closed, Alcott became increasingly financially desperate.

The school's founder, James Pierpont Greaves, had only recently died but Alcott was invited to stay there for a week.

As Alcott had published earlier, " Our wine is water, — flesh, bread ; — drugs, fruits.

Lane believed Alcott had misled him into thinking enough people would join the enterprise and developed a strong dislike for the nuclear family.

“ Alcott particularly battled the conventional marriage plot in writing Little Women ” Alcott did not have Jo accept Laurie ’ s hand in marriage ; rather, when she finally had Jo get married, she picked an unconventional man for Jo ’ s husband.

In the years following the book's publication, responses to the tale were published by W. M. Swepstone ( Christmas Shadows, 1850 ), Horatio Alger ( Job Warner's Christmas, 1863 ), Louisa May Alcott ( A Christmas Dream, and How It Came True, 1882 ), and others who followed Scrooge's life as a reformed man – or some who thought Dickens had gotten it wrong and needed to be corrected.

Because of her family ’ s prominence in Boston society, Perry had access from an early age to such literary greats as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and James Russell Lowell.

She had outlasted most of her contemporaries such as King, Patty Sheehan and Amy Alcott, remaining competitive on the LPGA Tour.

Amos Bronson Alcott ( November 29, 1799 – March 4, 1888 ) was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer.

A native New Englander, Amos Bronson Alcott was born in Wolcott, Connecticut ( only recently renamed from " Farmingbury ") on November 29, 1799.

Bronson gave it up after only a month and was self-educated from then on. He was not particularly social and his only close friend was his neighbor and second cousin William Alcott, with whom he shared books and ideas.

On November 6, 1827, Alcott started teaching in Bristol, Connecticut, still using the same methods he used in Cheshire, but opposition from the community surfaced quickly ; he was unemployed by March 1828.

It was there that their first child, a daughter they named Anna Bronson Alcott, was born on March 16, 1831, after 36 hours of labor.

Louisa May Alcott was born on her father's birthday, November 29, 1832, at a half hour past midnight.

" Alcott began to believe Boston was the best place for his ideas to flourish.

Born on June 24, 1835, she was named Elizabeth Peabody Alcott in honor of the teaching assistant at the Temple School.

Abby May wrote in her journal on January 17, 1843, " A day of some excitement, as Mr. Alcott refused to pay his town tax ... After waiting some time to be committed jail, he was told it was paid by a friend.

Alcott, however, was still in debt and could not purchase the land needed for their planned community.

Louisa May Alcott, who was ten years old at the time, later wrote of the experience in Transcendental Wild Oats ( 1873 ): " The band of brothers began by spading garden and field ; but a few days of it lessened their ardor amazingly.

In March 1853, Alcott was invited to teach fifteen students at Harvard Divinity School in an extracurricular, non-credit course.

In 1860, Alcott was named superintendent of Concord Schools.

" Alcott was an abolitionist and a friend of the more radical William Lloyd Garrison.

Alcott was one of several who attempted to storm the courthouse ; when gunshots were heard, he was the only one who stood his ground, though the effort was unsuccessful.

Alcott is often criticized for his inability to earn a living and support his family ; he often relied on loans from his brother-in-law, Emerson, and others.

Modern critics often fault Alcott for not being able to financially support his family.

Alcott wrote Little Women “ in record time for money .” Since Alcott never married and wrote that she was “ often lonely and in ill health ,” some people questioned how she was able to write so beautifully and reflectively about " American home life .”

Suggested prototypes for Hollingsworth include Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Horace Mann, while the narrator is often supposed to be none other than Hawthorne himself.

Mathis appeared in Little Women, the 1994 film version of the novel by Louisa May Alcott, and How to Make an American Quilt ( 1995 ), both starring Winona Ryder, an actress she was often compared to early in her career.

The book, which fictionalized the Alcott family during the girls ' coming-of-age years, recast the father figure as a soldier, away from home while he fought in the Civil War.

At Emerson's request, Alcott helped arrange Thoreau's funeral, which was held at First Parish Sanctuary in Concord, despite Thoreau having disavowed membership in the church when he was in his early twenties.

After visiting him, Alcott wrote, " Concord will be shorn of its human splendor when he withdraws behind the cloud.

This was evident after the publication of part one of Little Women when girls wrote Alcott asking her “ who the little women marry .” The unresolved ending added to the popularity of Little Women.

During the nine months in 1775-1776 when Harvard moved to Concord, Massachusetts, Winthrop occupied the house which was later to become famous as The Wayside, home to Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

* Louisa May Alcott alludes to Mrs Grundy in her book Little Women when speaking of the changes Laurie undergoes as a result of Amy's admonitions to him ( 1868 ).

Amy Alcott started the practice but it was not fully embraced until 1994 when Donna Andrews took the leap and it has since become a yearly tradition.