The Other Alcott

by Elise Hooper

With the exception of the Bishop family, all of the characters in this book are inspired by real people. So, what became of them?

  Alice Bartol is a composite character based on two of May’s friends: Alice Bartlett and Lizzie Bartol. Alice Bartlett (1844–1912) accompanied May and Louisa to France in 1870–1871 and had her own account of their trip to Europe published as Our Apartment: A Practical Guide to Those Intending to Spend a Winter in Rome. She went on to marry her first cousin and travel several more times to Europe. It is said she gave Henry James the idea for his novella Daisy Miller. Lizzie Bartol (1842–1927) was the only child of Cyrus Bartol, the Unitarian minister of West Church in Boston and fellow transcendentalist with Bronson Alcott. She studied art with May in Boston, both with Dr. Rimmer and William Morris Hunt, and went on to paint and exhibit her artwork until 1899. She never married. She was one of a community of women who furthered the development of Boston’s artistic world through writing, shows, and the creation of the Society of Arts and Crafts. I found A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870–1940 by Erica E. Hirshler and the article “Women Artists in Boston, 1870–1900: The Pupils of William Morris Hunt” by Martha J. Hoppin in The American Art Journal (Winter 1981) to be critical sources for learning more about this group of women.

  Helen Knowlton (1832–1918) studied under William Morris Hunt and took over his classes from 1871 to 1875 after he decided to focus his attention on developing his portrait business. She published both Talks on Art: Hints for Pupils in Drawing and Painting and The Art Life of William Morris Hunt. This last book helped me to better understand Hunt’s theories on art instruction. Miss Knowlton traveled to Europe several times and exhibited her work with fellow friend and artist Ellen Day Hale through the 1890s.

  Anne Whitney (1821–1915) enjoyed a long, prolific career as a sculptor, creating work reflecting her abolitionist and suffragist views. She spent four years in Rome with her lifelong partner, Adeline Manning. It’s true that she won a blind competition to have her sculpture of abolitionist Charles Sumner exhibited in Boston Public Garden in the mid-1870s, but her entry was cast aside when her identity was revealed, because the Boston Arts Committee believed it to be indecent for a woman to sculpt a man’s legs (even in pants). Her sculpture now stands in Harvard Square.

  Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1837–1922) never had a documented encounter with May Alcott, but their New England roots and years in Paris coincided, so I couldn’t resist joining the two women artists in fiction. Miss Gardner won a gold medal at the Salon, and her paintings were exhibited in the Salon more than those of any other woman. Her engagement to fellow painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau stretched out to seventeen years because of his mother’s opposition to their relationship. The two finally married in 1896 after years of openly living together.

  Anna Klumpke (1856–1942), an American artist hailing from San Francisco, studied in the Académie Julian. She led a long, successful career as a landscape painter and portraitist and became the lifelong partner of the great French artist Rosa Bonheur. Overcoming All Obstacles: The Women of the Académie Julian, edited by Gabriel P. Weisberg and Jane R. Becker, was an invaluable source for learning about the women studying painting in Paris during the late 1800s.

  Marie Bashkirtseff (1858–1884), a Ukrainian painter, also studied at the Académie Julian. Her confidence and competitive spirit is best demonstrated by the title of her diary: I Am the Most Interesting Book of All. This colorful figure died at the early age of 25 from tuberculosis.

  Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), the well-known American Impressionist, befriended May Alcott in Paris during the period when she joined the group of artists called Impressionists who were confounding the Parisian art world with their new style and beliefs. Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected Letters, edited by Nancy Mowll Mathews, was a wonderful source to learn more about this talented yet very private artist.

  While in Rome, May studied art with Frederic Crowninshield, but I changed his name to Frederic Crownover in this novel, because I dramatically altered the details of his life for my story. In real life, there is no evidence that Frederic Crowninshield and May had anything but a positive, professional relationship.

  William Keith also existed and worked out of a studio in Boston briefly before the fire of 1872 destroyed it. He was friends with John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, and is best known for his grand landscapes of the American West. When I read that Keith’s first painting instructor in San Francisco went on to become his wife, I imagined him to be the type of character who could fit into my story line. Although Violet is a figure of my own creation, his real first wife died young, and his second wife was a suffragist in California.

  All of the artwork referenced in this novel is real, but sometimes I changed the timeline of when and where certain works were exhibited to better serve my story.

  I visited Orchard House several times during the creation of this novel, and a rich sense of history still permeates every room of this wonderfully preserved house. Tourists from all over the world still line up daily to view the Alcott’s home, and the staff is incredibly knowledgeable about all things Alcott.

  Aside from the books previously mentioned, I relied on the following books for my research:

  Alcott in Her Own Time, ed. Daniel Shealy

  Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, by John Matteson

  Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters’ Letters from Europe, 1870–1871, ed. Daniel Shealy

  Louisa May Alcott: A Biography, by Madeleine B. Stern

  Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, by Harriet Reisen

  Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother, by Eve LaPlante

  May Alcott: A Memoir, by Caroline Ticknor

  Studying Art Abroad, and How to Do It Cheaply, by Abigail May Alcott Nieriker

  The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, ed. Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy

  The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott, ed. Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy

  Acknowledgments

  My love for the Alcotts would have remained a quirky obsession if not for the support and encouragement of many people who helped bring this novel into the world.

  I traveled to Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, several times during the creation of this novel, and Lis Adams and Jan Turnquist, both experts on all things Alcott, always answered my questions and provided me with access to the museum’s archives, including May’s unpublished diary from her final years. Mary Smoyer of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail took me on a fascinating tour around the Back Bay to view sites important to the history of the city’s women artists.

  I cannot thank my agent Barbara Braun enough for being my champion and counsel. My editor, Lucia Macro, has shown boundless enthusiasm for this story, and her kind guidance and expertise has been invaluable—Lucia, thank you. To the wonderful team at William Morrow and HarperCollins, I’m forever appreciative for your hard work on behalf of this novel.

  I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by friends and family who’ve encouraged every step of this journey by offering tennis breaks and glasses of wine, and most importantly, by taking my children so I could write. Diane Hooper, John Hooper, Gretchen Moores-Hooper, Stacy Burns, and Kelly Larson, I couldn’t have done this without you. Nat and Sarah Worden, I’m grateful for your love and reading notes. Thank you to my early readers: Kristin Beck, Kristie Berg, Ellen Dorr, Felicia Hyllested, Toby Miller, Rachel Pelander, Alana Scott, Shannon Smith, and Kat Yun. Thanks also to my supportive colleagues and students at The Bush School. To Waverly Fitzgerald and Joan Leegant and my friends at Hugo House, your feedback and advice were invaluable. Carrie Kwiakowski, my writing buddy, thanks for all of your comments in the margins of the countless drafts you read.

  This book would never have taken shape without my parents, Kathy and Doug Worden, who’ve nurtured my love of reading and writing from the beginning. To Kate and Caroline, you’re my favorite little
women and provide me with endless inspiration and joy. And finally, Dave, thank you for always saying yes when I need to hear it. You’re everything to me.

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  * * *

  Meet Elise Hooper

  About the Book

  * * *

  A Conversation with Elise Hooper

  Reading Group Discussion Questions

  Alcott Trivia

  May Alcott’s Illustrations

  About the Author

  Meet Elise Hooper

  Although a New Englander by birth (and at heart), ELISE lives with her husband and two young daughters in Seattle, where she teaches history and literature. The Other Alcott is her first novel.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  About the Book

  A Conversation with Elise Hooper

  Q: Why did you feel compelled to write about May Alcott?

  A: I grew up in Massachusetts near Concord and attended drama camp at Orchard House. In addition to my visits to the Alcott family home, I read many of Louisa’s novels, but it was really Little Women that gave shape to my desire to be a writer at a young age, so for my first novel, I wanted to revisit the historical figures who played such a formative role in my own interests.

  Many writers have already covered interesting aspects of the Alcotts’ lives so I felt pressure to find a unique path. I researched and researched and experienced a few false starts, but found May’s story largely untold—which is amazing because it’s so compelling! She was such an optimistic figure, despite the many challenges that faced her, and she’s always been overshadowed by her infinitely more famous older sister, making me feel that her story needed to be told. Furthermore, I thought many modern readers would relate to May’s struggle to balance her desire for a career with her search to find love.

  Q: Upon reading The Other Alcott, Little Women fans may be surprised at Louisa’s conflicting feelings about the beloved classic. How much of the portrayal of Louisa is true and how much did you fictionalize?

  A: To understand Louisa, readers must understand the real circumstances of the Alcotts prior to Little Women being published. Unlike Little Women’s March family who live in a state of genteel poverty, the Alcotts were flat-out impoverished. May’s father, Bronson, refused to accept monetary reward for work, so they relied on the generosity of family members and a small inheritance May’s mother, Abigail, received upon the death of her father. While struggling to stay afloat financially, the Alcotts moved more than twenty-two times in almost thirty years before eventually settling in Concord, Massachusetts, after Ralph Waldo Emerson offered to support them. Although all of the Alcott sisters grappled with poverty’s challenges, Louisa, in particular, vowed that one day she’d be “rich and famous,” yet for years her various writing endeavors didn’t lead to riches. It wasn’t until Louisa’s longtime publisher, Mr. Thomas Niles, saw the success of William Taylor Adams’s novels for boys that he proposed a “domestic story” for girls to Louisa. Initially she dismissed the idea, feeling the book would be dull, but eventually Niles wore her down.

  Q: Did Louisa really resent the success of Little Women the way she does in The Other Alcott?

  A: Louisa had a complicated relationship with Little Women from the start, and I wanted to explore this complexity in my novel. She often called her writing for the juvenile market “rubbish” and declared she only produced it for the money. She became annoyed with the fan mail that focused on marriage and felt “afflicted” by the pressure her publisher placed upon her to marry all of her characters in a “wholesome manner.”

  I think most artists can identify with the tension Louisa faced between creating work that satisfied her own need for self-expression and producing work that held the market’s interest. Because the Alcotts depended upon her income, Louisa chose to answer to the market, but I believe she remained uncomfortable with that decision for the rest of her life. All of her journals and letters make her insecurities clear; she is forever tallying up her income in her journal and lamenting writing the juvenile content her audience demanded. Fame and fortune did not live up to her expectations.

  But despite her uneasiness with writing for children, it must be noted that she took her young audience seriously and never condescended to her readers. In fact, many of Louisa’s stories tackled fairly adult themes, such as injustice, duty, and self-reliance.

  Q: Did Louisa really teach herself to write with both hands?

  A: Yes, she did! She wanted to be able to write for long stretches of time without stopping, so she simply switched back and forth between her right and left hands while she worked.

  Q: In The Other Alcott, Louisa always seems ill. Was her health really that bad?

  A: Unfortunately, Louisa was bedeviled by a variety of ailments throughout adulthood. During the American Civil War, she served as a nurse for the Union Army in Washington, D.C., and caught typhoid fever while working at Bellevue Hospital. Although she eventually recovered, doctors used a compound to treat her illness that she later believed gave her mercury poisoning. Today, doctors suspect Louisa suffered from lupus. But her health woes may have been even more complicated than physical ailments alone. In her documentary Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, Harriet Reisen speculates that Louisa may have suffered from manic-depressive disorder based on her tendency to immerse herself so completely in her writing that she would neglect to eat and sleep for days at a time. Louisa referred to these manic periods as “falling into a vortex” and would emerge from them depleted and in poor health.

  Q: It seems like Bronson Alcott, Louisa and May’s father, could be considered radical for his era. What contributed to his unusual views?

  A: Bronson was a unique individual, even by today’s standards. Among other things, he was a philosopher, abolitionist, vegetarian, suffragist, and progressive educator. In fact, today’s kids who love recess can thank Bronson Alcott because he introduced the idea of “physical activity breaks” during the school day well before this was the norm. When May was a toddler in the early 1840s, he even started a small utopian community in Harvard, Massachusetts, called Fruitlands and moved his family there. Daily life at Fruitlands was a challenge—its residents ate no animal products, bathed in cold water every morning, wore plain tunics and slippers made of linen (to avoid wearing slave-picked cotton), and refused to use any livestock for farming. Hungry and cold, the community’s residents chafed at the group’s stated goal of being self-reliant. When Bronson started discussing celibacy, Abigail Alcott announced she was leaving and taking Anna, Louisa, Lizzie, and May. The whole Fruitlands experiment fell apart after only seven months, but Bronson stuck with his transcendental philosophy for the rest of his life.

  Q: What was transcendentalism and how did this philosophy impact May?

  A: Transcendentalism was a philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century rooted in the belief that human nature was inherently good but could be corrupted by society’s institutions, such as organized religion and political parties. Transcendentalists believed self-reliance and independence to be the ideal state of man. Because of his transcendental philosophy, Bronson Alcott didn’t want to participate in economic systems and refused to receive money in exchange for work. Luckily for the Alcotts, Mr. Emerson believed Bronson to be a great philosopher and helped the Alcotts in many ways over the years. While May didn’t identify herself as a transcendentalist explicitly, the movement’s beliefs undoubtedly influenced her desire to forge her own path that differed from mainstream society.

  Q: Of all of the women artists in The Other Alcott, only Mary Cassatt is a name that most people today recognize. If women began studying art in larger numbers during the late 1800s, why are there not more well-known women artists?

  A: While studying art became more accessible to women during the late 1800s, the commercial arena of artistic success still remained mostly closed to women f
or many reasons. For one, it took years to hone the skills and business connections needed to become a successful painter or sculptor. Most women did not have decades to develop their talents and build connections with art dealers because they often needed to marry to ensure their own financial well-being. In addition, women lacked access to birth control, and their long-term careers as artists were compromised since marriage ensured periods of creative unproductivity due to childbearing and child-rearing.

  The best-known American women artists of the late 1800s—Mary Cassatt and Cecilia Beaux, to name a couple—remained unmarried because they were from wealthy families and possessed the means to be independent. Several of the women in The Other Alcott, including Rosa Bonheur, Anna Klumpke, Anne Whitney, and Adeline Manning, lived in “Boston Marriages” a term used to describe two women living together in a long-term relationship, but these women had the means to eschew traditional marriages and focus on their careers unimpeded by familial responsibilities.

  One of the few women who juggled motherhood with her professional career as an artist was Berthe Morisot, a wealthy member of the French aristocracy. She continued to work as an Impressionist painter after the birth of her daughter, Julie, because she could hire help and her husband, also a painter, supported her endeavors. This was unusual. Overall, most women painters found it challenging to maintain professional artistic lives once they married and started families of their own.

  Photo credit: Frances Benjamin Johnston, “Académie Julian, Paris, group of art students” ca. 1885

  (source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001697170/)

  Q: What kind of research helped you better understand this family and the era?

  A: I started by learning as much about May Alcott and her family as possible. Biographies of the Alcotts are plentiful, especially about Louisa and Bronson, so I immersed myself in secondary sources to get a broad sense of the major milestones in their lives and formative experiences before turning to primary sources. The Alcotts were a family of prolific letter writers and journal keepers, so there was a wide selection of material from which I could experience their individual personalities. Rereading some of Louisa’s novels, especially Little Women and An Old-Fashioned Girl educated me on Victorian life, from big topics to small details, ranging from Victorian recreational activities to the types of flowers an upper-class family would have on their dining room table.