Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was a nineteenth-century American writer best known for the Little Women series and other fiction for children. She also wrote memoirs, adult fiction, and sensationalist fiction under the pseuclonym A. M. Barnard. What I most admire about Alcott is her independence. The quote on my plate reads "paddle my own canoe." In a journal entry, Alcott wrote that she'd rather be "a free spinster and paddle my own canoe." Along similar lines,she wanted her most famed character,Jo,to remain single avoiding the marriage plot. Pressures from her publisher made her marry Jo off, but Alcott remained single and lived a happy,successfullife. Ialso love that she grew up in a town of great American male writers--Emerson, Hawthorne,Thoreau,but she remains the most popular and arguably the most influential writer from Concord,MA. I also respect that Alcott wrote to raise her family out of poverty and remained dedicated to her family her entire life. And,finally,I am recognizing Alcott because she worked for social justice as a feminist and abolitionist.