By age three, however, her mother changed her name to Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, after her own mother.

I met Henry James the other night at Emerson's, at an Alcottian conversation, at which, however, Alcott did not talk much, being disturbed by James's opposition.

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.

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

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 had high expectations but was often away when the community most needed him as he attempted to recruit more members.

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 himself worried about his own prospects as a young man, once writing to his mother that he was " still at my old trade — hoping.

By the summer of 1823, Alcott returned to Connecticut in debt to his father, who bailed him out after his last two unsuccessful sales trips.

After Lane's departure, Alcott fell into a depression and could not speak or eat for three days.

The crucial first point is that the choice is hers, its quirkiness another sign of her much-prized individuality .” “ Bhaer has all the qualities Bronson Alcott lacked: warmth, intimacy, and a tender capacity for expressing his affection — the feminine attributes Alcott admired and hoped men could acquire in a rational, feminist world .”

" Alcott thought that “ a democratic household could evolve into a feminist society .” In Little Women, she imagined that just such an evolution might begin with Plumfield, a nineteenth century feminist utopia .”

Utilizing a variety of bulbs with different wattages, and controlling them with the external dimmers, Alcott could light the set in a very fast, efficient manner.

Alcott renovated the property, moving a barn and painting the home a rusty olive color, as well as tending to over six acres of land.

In 1840, after several setbacks with the school, the Alcott family moved to a cottage on of land, situated along the Sudbury River in Concord, Massachusetts.

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.

Based on his ideas for human perfection, Alcott founded Fruitlands, a transcendentalist experiment in community living.

Alcott continued to struggle financially for most of his life.

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.

The school taught only reading, writing, and spelling and he left this school at the age of 10. At age 13, his uncle, Reverend Tillotson Bronson, invited Alcott into his home in Cheshire, Connecticut to be educated and prepared for college.

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

Around this time, Alcott also first expressed his public disdain for slavery.

Alcott preferred the term " Symposium " for their group.

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

The Alcott family put The Hillside up for rent and moved to Boston.

Alcott voted in a presidential election for the first time in 1860.

On January 19, 1879, Alcott and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn wrote a prospectus for a new school which they distributed to potentially interested people throughout the country.

Alcott himself moved out of Concord for his final years, settling at 10 Louisburg Square in Boston beginning in 1885.

At times, Alcott offered his own hand for an offending student to strike, saying that any failing was the teacher's responsibility.

Writer James Russell Lowell referred to Alcott in his poem " Studies for Two Heads " as " an angel with clipped wings ".

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

* Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, lived and worked for seven weeks during 1851 as a domestic helper in Dedham

His attitudes towards Alcott's sometimes wild and independent behavior, and his inability to provide for his family, sometimes created conflict between Bronson Alcott and his wife and daughters.

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 .”