I was six years old, I believe, and my grandmother was in town. In my heart, I became involved with Orchard House on my very first visit. How did you first become involved with Orchard House? What a thrill it was to discover that there was at least one other out there in the world who a) found a role model in Jo March and wrote journals as a girl, b) really liked the real life May Alcott (even if she didn’t like Amy March), c) finds that it is the people that make the best part of any home… I’d ask around about the anonymous staff member who took the time to converse with me through the written word, and beg her for a tour!

I wish I were at Orchard House right now. I must confess, I am feeling really sad at the moment not being at the Summer Conversations in Concord and meeting such kindred spirits in person. Louisa's younger sister May, upon whom the character of Amy was based, was a talented artist, and Louisa herself had a 'shelf desk' set up where she wrote her famous novel.All photographs courtesy of Orchard House The family dining room was the stage for many discussions about political issues of the day, including women's suffrage and abolitionism. These include paintings by Louisa's sister May, family china, a soapstone sink bought by Louisa and a laundry drying rack designed by her father Bronson.īronson Alcott was a writer and pioneer of educational reforms who advocated veganism and espoused the transcendentalist philosophy made famous by Emerson and Thoreau. Decorated in an authentic 19th-century style, the house is furnished with many objects that belonged to the Alcotts–approximately 80% of the furnishings in the house were actually theirs. MAY WE SUGGEST: How Little Women’s production designer brought the world of the March sisters to lifeĪlthough the house was eventually sold after the death of Alcott's mother, no major structural changes were ever made, and it has now been restored and set up as a museum dedicated to the author and her family. Alcott was 26 at the time, and it was here that she would write Little Women.

Although the family moved around constantly during her childhood, they finally settled in a two-storey clapboard farmhouse named Orchard House in Concord, MA in the spring of 1858.

The tale of sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, is a semi-autobiographical account of Alcott's own upbringing in Massachusetts, where, like her protagonist Jo, she was the second of four sisters. Louisa May Alcott's classic novel Little Women has been a beloved childhood book since its publication in the late 1860s.

Little women orchard house