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Adventures Out
Bring Your Little Women to Concord
If you have avid readers---or aspiring authors---under your roof, plan a visit to Orchard House in Concord, where Louisa May Alcott lived and wrote Little Women, the book that helped her become one of the most successful authors of the late 19th century. A tour of the house recalls Alcott’s colorful life and provides a tangible background for the classic novel still read by girls and teens today.
Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, purchased the home in Concord for $950 in 1857. It was, his wife Abigail exclaimed, “a house fit for pigs and apple orchards.” The 12-acre lot actually contained two houses, dating from 1650 and 1730, which Bronson combined into one big structure that he called Orchard House.
Fortunately, he was handy with the hammer and inventive in his house plans. He built a kitchen over the well in the basement, put windows in closets for extra light, created wall niches as interesting space for sculptures, and scattered bookcases and shelves all about. Louisa wrote Little Women at a half-moon desk that her father had built between two windows in an upstairs bedroom.
Published in two parts, from 1868-1869, this semi-autobiographical novel tells the stories of four teenaged sisters during the Civil War. The first printing of 2,000 copies sold immediately and established Louisa’s fame.
Bringing the Story to Life
Strolling through Orchard House, which contains many furnishings and personal possessions of the Alcotts, is like walking through scenes from Little Women. You can picture “Jo” directing her melodramatic plays or quiet, shy “Beth” playing the piano in the parlor. You can imagine the “March sisters” running across the wide floorboards while playing one of their games of make believe. Fortunately, besides being a house museum, special programs encourage children to play in the Alcotts’ world, participating in crafts, games, writing, dramas and art---just like in the book.
But Orchard House, where the Alcotts lived until 1877, provides a connection to much more than the setting for Louisa's novel. The Alcott family came to Concord at the request of Transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived down the street from Orchard House. Emerson admired Bronson’s ideas of educational reform and dreams of a Utopian society.
Louisa borrowed books from Emerson’s library. She took long walks with naturalist Henry David Thoreau. She played with author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s children. These bigger-than-life characters were part of Louisa’s everyday circle. Perhaps it’s no surprise that by age 15, Louisa was publishing poems and magazine stories to supplement the family income.
Little Women’s “Jo,” “Meg,” “Beth,” and “Amy” were certainly more conventional and more ladylike than the actual Alcott sisters (Louisa, Anna, Lizzie and May). Anna performed plays at public venues, not just in the parlor. May drew sketches of visitors and famous paintings on the walls and woodwork of Orchard House. To make money, she taught art classes and later showed some of her paintings in the Paris Salon. As for Louisa, she referred to herself as “an old maid, that's what I'm to be. A literary spinster, with a pen for a spouse, a family of stories for children, and 20 years hence a morsel of fame, perhaps.”
When You Visit
Orchard House is located at 399 Lexington Road in Concord. It’s open for guided tours year-round. To learn more about Concord and its other literary homes and residents, read the Day Trips: Concord article.
(BPP, 5/08)
Before your next night on the town, visit Restaurant.com
for big savings at local eateries.
Bypass theater ticket lines. Buy movie tickets in advance at Fandango.com. Read reviews and find showtimes for any movie in the U.S.
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