Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown (now Philadelphia), Pennsylvania in 1832. In 1838, the family moved to Boston where Alcott’s father established an experimental transcendentalist school with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Alcott received most of her early education from her father, Thoreau, and other family friends. As an adult, Alcott became an abolitionist and a feminist. In the 1860s, Alcott began writing for the Atlantic Monthly and published several novels under the pen name A.M. Barnard. Alcott published her most famous work, the semi-autobiographical novel Little Women, in two parts in 1868 and 1869. The sequel, Little Men, was also popular. Alcott continued to write until she died of a stroke in 1888, at age 55.