The drive up to Concord was peaceful and occasionally scenic; as always, it was just my mother and me making the trip to see Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard. The Alcott house was an unassuming building, constructed with dark gray wooden planks. We went on the 3:45 p.m. tour. As our tour guide led us through each room in the house, I noted that the house smelled exactly like it looked. Each room smelled like a combination of a cabin in the woods, an old classroom, and a freshly cleaned museum exhibit. It seemed that, no matter how much varnish, fresh coats of paint, or cleanings the house had gone under, the smell of the original creaking wood floor boards of the home would always seep through and remind us of its history.
We started our tour in the School of Philosophy building that Louisa’s father built, as a way to educate his daughters and others who would have otherwise been denied education at the time. The building was tiny, about the size of a single classroom at Bancroft, and was made fully out of wood. The floorboards creaked with each step I took, the painted doors of the cabinets were chipping, and the room had an overall damp smell to it. I knew that this was the only time I would really be able to take field notes before the tour, so I quickly jotted down my observations and took pictures of the building. Our tour guide then led us to the main house, where we were not allowed to use our mobile devices in order to “stay present.” I actually preferred this, as it gave me an opportunity to observe my surroundings and the people around me in real time, just as Jennine Crucet did.
As we continued our tour of the house, I took note of the furniture and decorations that adorned the walls. What stood out to me in particular in her home was the sheer amount and variety of art in her house. Her parents’ had treated their home as a display for their daughter’s work and excellence. Dolls and blankets made by Anna adorned various bedrooms in the home, Louisa’s personal literature and books lay on bookshelves throughout the house, Beth’s pianos and sheet music haunted the parlor and dining room, and May’s paintings hung on every wall and sat on every mantle. Whether it was paintings, music, or literature on bookshelves, the Alcott house was swimming in creative work by women.
We received our tour along with a mixed group of young adults and middle-aged couples, and while we were on the tour, the rooms of the sisters’ who had lived in the house were shown and thoroughly analyzed. As we were guided through each of the sisters’ rooms, people in our group would speak up and ask questions about the sisters and the artifacts in the room. An older woman was the first to speak in Louisa’s room, and she spoke softly and timidly as if the room commanded respect. She was not alone in speaking this way, everyone in our group would pose their questions in a hushed voice and a soft tone. It is an unspoken rule to lower your voice while in a historically significant space, and everyone in our tour group seemed to understand that Louisa May Alcott’s room deserved this respect.
As we passed through their father’s study, the woman taking us on this tour explained that their whole family was fervently abolitionist. They prided themselves on the expansion of education to all people, regardless of race or gender. She explained that they hired tutors to expand their daughters’ education, and their father even got fired for allowing a Black student into his classroom. Throughout the tour, she emphasized that Louisa in particular had to fight for the ability to write in the way she did, as women were not encouraged to do so, or even allowed in institutions for higher education. Hearing this, I realized my privilege as lack of an access to education has never been a struggle I have personally faced. Like many girls in the 21st century, I was put into school at a young age, and encouraged to pursue higher education. My biggest worry is that I will not be able to go to the college I want, and not that I will be unable to go to college at all.
After this discovery, I paid attention to which details our tour guide was emphasizing as we walked through each of rooms of Alcott’s sisters. Instead of simply highlighting the fact that the sisters lived 200 years ago, she chose to highlight what they accomplished and were passionate about while they were living. Because of their parents’ (at the time) unconventional belief that everyone should have access to education, they had to find elaborate ways just to make it happen for their daughters. May was only able to continue her art education in Europe because of restrictions she had faced locally, Beth was only able to learn her piano at home for the same reasons, and Louisa was only able to continue her education in literature because of her family’s connections to private tutors. I then realized that all the sisters had excelled in creative fields: Anna was a seamstress, Louisa was a writer, Beth was a pianist, and May was a painter. This was extremely uncommon, as most artists or writers who gained fame and approval at the time were all men. Many women, including Louisa, published their work under male or androgynous pseudonyms so that the public’s bias against women would not restrict the success of their books. Even May—who was especially good at impersonating artists— had focused on creating impressionist paintings of male painters, as she was unable to gain fame despite being equally as talented. It was then that I recognized my personal ignorance, as for many young women, including myself, access to education is a privilege that is often overlooked and underappreciated. Like many other young women in my generation, we are all able to choose what we would like to do. Whether we would like to be an educator, an artist, a scientist, or an author, the current system is set up so that we are not denied that opportunity. Although we may still have to work harder than our male counterparts to achieve our dreams, colleges and universities are now available to many of us. Not many young women now must leave the United States to pursue a more refined education in art, like May had, because there were no other local options.
As I left the Orchard, I went home with a newfound sense of responsibility; a responsibility to continue pursuing my passion, no matter how effort or struggle may come with it. However, I also left with a plethora of newfound questions about what it means to be a woman in academic and creative fields. Women in all careers face systematic obstacles when pursuing their careers, and I wondered what they might be now, and if they are modifications of the ones the Alcott sisters and women in their time may have had to face. I left wondering how the issues women who aspire to be artists face compared to women who aspire to be writers or teachers, and why they still affect women today.
