Having grown up reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and, of course, like so many writers, fantasizing about being the character Jo, I leap at the opportunity to take a little side trip to Concord, MA to visit Orchard House on a recent business excursion to Boston. The Alcotts lived at Orchard House for a bit when Louisa was an adult, and it’s where she wrote Little Women in, as I learn on our tour, just three months. But looking for Louisa at Orchard House, I find someone else: Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, the little sister on whom the character Amy in Little Women was based.
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COVID-19 UPDATE
Orchard House is currently offering virtual tour videos. Learn more here.
Why Visit Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House?
What is the purpose of any literary tourism? To divine the spirit of an author, in some measure; to somehow access the energy that surrounded the making of a masterpiece. I get pretty much what I expect on my visit: a colonial house and period furniture. What I am surprised by is how little there is of Louisa on the premises and how much there is of her younger sister, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker.
Abigail May, called May, became the model for youngest daughter Amy in Little Women, the character who fortuitously got the good life and managed to win the competition for Laurie, the handsome, wealthy young man next door. Amy is the character that gets to make art and travel to Europe and marry well while Jo stays home and writes.
Life Imitates Art, Sort Of
“Amy has all the fun, and I have all the work,” laments writer Jo in Little Women. And so it was with Louisa May Alcott and her younger sister Abigail May Alcott Nieriker. I imagine all four Alcott sisters were indulged in some measure by parents Bronson and Abby. “Indulged” being relative, of course, given Bronson Alcott’s chronic inability to provide well for his own family. Nevertheless, the Alcott girls are educated—at a time when women were not exactly deemed equal to their male counterparts. Louisa’s talent for writing was encouraged, as was May’s interest in art.
Tour the family’s Orchard House in Concord, MA, though, and most of what you will find there are signs of May. Her drawings and paintings were, in some instances, created on the walls and window casings themselves. She is everywhere.
What we see of Louisa is a tiny little window desk her father made for her.
Who Was Abigail May Alcott Nieriker?
Intrigued, I pick up a copy of May Alcott: A Memoir by Caroline Ticknor in the gift shop of the Orchard House. Originally published in 1928, the work includes excerpts from May’s letters and those of other family members.
May Alcott was the one who ended up with a good life, thanks to Little Women. Her sister Louisa funded May’s trips abroad and her art lessons. Louisa mostly got to stay home and keep churning out works that would keep the family well-funded. Father Bronson too often had his head in the clouds and too frequently ended up with insufficient means to support himself or his family.
Ticknor’s book on Abigail May Alcott Nieriker address the life of duty that Louisa got and the life of beauty that May managed to attain. Louisa May Alcott kept stepping up to be the provider her father would not, or could not, be.
Having learned too much about Bronson’s various failed escapades in other biographies of the family, I cannot help but wonder, as I look at Louisa’s little desk and contemplate May’s handiwork, how much Louisa felt pressure to provide. I wonder if Bronson took advantage of Louisa’s generosity, whether all of them did. I wonder whether Louisa resented her sister May even as Louisa kept funding May’s own indulgences.
Not Exactly a Happy Ending
Abigail May Alcott Nieriker may have gotten a bit of her counterpart Amy March’s art-filled life, but May’s ending was not a happy one. She did manage to marry but died shortly after giving birth to her only child. May’s daughter, also named Louisa (but called Lulu), ended up being cared for by her writerly Aunt Louisa, who also was helping older sister Anna and her family after Anna’s husband died prematurely. Louisa herself never married and ended up dying at age 55, after which 8-year-old little Louisa Nieriker returned to her father in Europe.
I’d like to hope that Louisa May Alcott had some secret life in Boston, where she frequently lived. I hope that she had a lover, of any gender, that she kept hidden. Because for most of her adult life, Louisa May Alcott was taking care of everything and everyone in her life.
Given current times, I ask myself would Louisa May Alcott would do if she were quarantined. Indeed, the family did self-isolate for a bit when a number of members contracted smallpox. What Louisa would do, of course, is write.
If You Visit Concord (after quarantine and self-isolation have ended)
After a visit to the Alcotts’ Orchard House, walk around historic Concord (of the Battle of Lexington and Concord fame).
When times allow, enjoy lunch or dinner (or stay over!) at Concord’s Colonial Inn, an historic property.
Afterward, visit nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to see where many members of the Alcott family are buried. Louisa May Alcott’s grave is there along Author’s Ridge. Other familiar names at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery include Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson. May Alcott was buried in France, where she lived at the time of her death.
For Bashful Adventurers
Biographies of the Alcott family abound. One the provides a lot of insight into Bronson and his marriage to Abigail May (and, perhaps, some straying from it) is Madelon Bedell’s The Alcotts: Biography of a Family (1980).
Photographs of most of the interior of the Alcott family’s Orchard House in Concord, MA are not allowed. The exterior and grounds may be photographed, though.
Should you write your generation’s version of Little Women or Harry Potter, consider whether and to what extent you would provide for your parents and your siblings and nieces and nephews.
Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, 390 Lexington Road, Concord, MA 01742
—Lori Tripoli
Lori Tripoli is the editor and publisher of Bashful Adventurer. Based in the New York City vicinity, she writes about travel for a variety of publications. Contact Lori at loritripoli @ bashfuladventurer.com.
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