Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/68

ALCOTT.ALCOTT. good nature under much privation and serious perplexity. She reflected Mr. Alcott's own beautiful spirit, and their home, however humble, was a very happy and attractive one. For about three years after his marriage Mr. Alcott endeavored to establish a school in Germantown, Pa. It was in this place that his daughter, Louisa May, was born. Not meeting with the success he desired, Mr. Alcott returned to Boston with his family and undertook a school in the old Masonic Temple in Tremont street. He had as his assistants Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth P. Peabody. The school had a wide reputation, and for several years good success, but finally lost caste and failed. His views, as set forth in "Conversation with Children on the Gospels," published 1836, induced some of his patrons to remove their children from his school, and others were seriously annoyed when he received a colored girl as a pupil. A second time the school was closed, and Mr. Alcott removed to Concord, Mass., at the instigation of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Mr. Alcott pursued his studies in reform, in social economics, and in theology, getting a very humble living by lectures and conversations. Mr. Emerson said of him: "I think he has more faith in the ideal than any man I have known;" and his daughter, in her grand way, referring to his reputation, and knowing the close poverty his home had witnessed, gave the definition of a philosopher as, "A man in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth, and trying to haul him down." Mr. Alcott visited England in 1842 at the invitation of James P. Greaves of London, an educational theorist and friend of Pestalozzi. Mr. Greaves died before his arrival, but he was cordially received by his friends, and on his return was accompanied by two of these, Charles Lane and H. G. Wright. These gentlemen, impressed with Mr. Alcott's enthusiasm, went with him to Harvard, Mass., where Mr. Lane purchased a farm, which was called "Fruitlands." Here it was proposed to gather a community that should live in the region of high thought on a vegetable diet. The farm was sold. His English friends returned home, and Mr. Alcott went back to Concord. Here he remained, eking out an often-times scanty living by lectures and conversations in public halls or private homes throughout the country. The topics he presented were largely of a transcendental character, although including a wide range of purely practical questions. It was with difficulty that Mr. Alcott could write. Emerson said of him: "When he sits down to write, all his genius leaves him — he gives you the shells and throws away the kernel of his thought." In fact, his first book, "Tablets," was published in 1868, and 1839-'42 he contributed frequently to the "Dial" in a series of papers called "Orphic Sayings." He was, withal, brave. When Garrison was dragged through Boston streets, Alcott was close beside him, and when one remonstrated, said, "I do not see why my body is not as fit for a bullet as any other." His publications include: "Concord Days" (1872); "Table Talk" (1877); "New Connecticut" (1881); "Sonnets and Canzonets" (1882): "Ralph Waldo Emerson" (1882). He died at Concord, Mass., March 4, 1888. ALCOTT, Louisa May, author, was born at Germantown, Pa., Nov. 28, 1832, daughter of Amos Bronson and Abby (May) Alcott. Her father removed to Boston when she was but two years of age and personally conducted her education, assisted by his friend, Henry D. Thoreau. This education, with a short attendance at a young ladies' school, did not possess the practical quality that could be put to ready use in earning a livelihood. When necessity compelled her to support herself, she was obliged to resort to elementary teaching and sewing, and even to house service, and has given some hints of her struggles in a book entitled "Work." The statement that she worked thus to support herself does not bring all the nobility of this fine woman into view. Her efforts were for her family as well as for herself. Every dollar that she could spare from the bare necessities of life went into her home, to assist those she loved. She began to write stories for weekly journals when she was about twenty years of age, and received a mere pittance compared to that given to authors of established reputation for no better literary work. Sixteen years she lived in this way with just enough success now and then to keep her from becoming altogether discouraged, and then the civil war broke out. She volunteered as a nurse, and was stationed at Georgetown, D. C. Her first book was inspired by her army experience. It was called "Hospital Sketches," and yielded her the sum of two hundred dollars. She began to write articles for the magazines, and her book had given her a name that gained acceptance for some of her articles, but most of them were returned and, she says, "Consigned to an empty flour barrel." She continued writing short stories for small sums until 1867, when her publishers suggested that she should write a story for girls, and she wrote