The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

2018 marks the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, a novel which became a trendsetter best seller, influencing generations of girls. 

Anne Boyd Rioux's new book Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: the Story of Little Women and Why They Still Matter celebrates the novel's history, legacy, and influence. 

I don't recall when I first read Little Women. I was given a copy of Alcott's later novel Eight Cousins when I was in elementary school. Madame Alexander created Little Women dolls, and in 1960 to 1962 my great-grandmother gifted me Marmee, Beth, Amy and Meg. I never got a Jo or Beth doll for sadly my great-grandmother passed away in 1963. By then, I must have read the book or seen the movie, because I recall thinking that Amy was spoiled and I did not like her. I always liked Jo because she was a writer and at age nine I had decided I wanted to be an author when I grew up. 

my Madame Alexander Little Women Dolls, 1960-62

Meg, Beth, Jo, Amy is more than a nostalgic look at the novel, for Rioux seeks to answer the question of what the novel offers to young readers today. Is it still relevant?

But first, she turns her attention to The Making of a Classic, presenting Alcott 's family and personal history, how they were fictionalized in the novel, how she came to write the novel and its early success. 

Although the novel was inspired by the Alcott's family experiences, it was a very much idealized version of their life. Bronson Alcott held ideals that did not include worldly considerations so that his wife and daughters had to struggle to provide for their daily needs. He may have had episodes of mental instability. Louisa was perhaps a genius, but she also had to write to contribute to the family coffers. 

Alcott never meant to marry off all the March girls, save Beth who dies. But the publisher insisted. Jo was at least allowed to marry on her own terms, and her husband and she run a school together.

This section alone was fascinating for those of us who love the novel.

The various printings of the novel, the illustrators (including those by May Alcott) are also presented.

In Part II, The Life of a Classic, follows the novel's adaptation for the screen and stage--including a musical and an opera--and their influence. I recently viewed the last adaptation, the BBC/PBS television series on Masterpiece Theater, which I very much enjoyed.

Rioux then turns her attention to the novel's Cultural and Literary Influence, including how it has dropped off the literary canon and has been marginalized as a 'girl's book.' And yet the novel had "more influence on women writers as a group than any other single book," Rioux writes, and she quotes dozens of writers extolling its inspiration. Little Women's legacy includes novels such as Anne of Green Gables by L. M Montgomery and Hermonine Granger in the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling. 

Is the novel an idealized version of life, or does it reflect reality? G. K. Chesterton thought Alcott "anticipated realism by twenty or thirty years," while many 20th c writers found it preachy and, in short, too feminine. Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer both loved Little Women, while other feminists rejected the novel.

Is Little Women still relevant today, and why should it continue to be read, is probed in Part III: A Classic for Today. 

In recent years fewer children have read Little Women, and that is in part because educational standards became slanted toward boys and their needs and interests. Even if Teddy Roosevelt liked the book as a boy, today's boys won't pick up a book that is girlish. That's why some writers use initials instead of first names--so the boy readers won't know the books are written by a female! Sadly, few books by women appear on school reading lists.

What is lost when boy don't read about family and community? Have we 'hypermasculinized' boys and condoned intolerance of the feminine?

Last of all, Rioux looks at the role models girls today have, from Disney princesses to the action heroines and warrior princesses, Rory Gilmore to  Girls.

As a novel about young girls growing up, the March sisters offer readers images of what it means to be a girl and the choices girls have.

The novel, Rioux says, "is about learning to live with and for others," and it is about the compromises we make in life.

I highly recommend this book.

Anne Boyd Rioux is also the author of Constance Fenimore Woolson (read my review here) and editor of Miss Grief and Other Stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson.

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

by Anne Boyd Rioux

W. W. Norton & Company

Pub Date 21 Aug 2018 

ISBN 9780393254730

PRICE $27.95 (USD)

“Reading Anne Boyd Rioux’s engaging Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, has made me pick up Alcott’s novel yet again with renewed insight and inspiration. Every fan of Little Women will delight in reading this book. And all the women―and men―who haven’t read the novel will race to it after reading Rioux.”
- Ann Hood, author of Morningstar and The Book That Matters Most

*****

Little Women has influenced quilters as well.

Copy of pattern  by Marion Cheever Whiteside Newton 

Artist Marion Cheever Whiteside Newton established Story Book Quilts, a cottage industry of quiltmakers who sewes quilts based on her applique designs inspired by children's literature.

Little Women made by Nancy A. Bekofske

In 1952 her Little Women pattern was sold through Ladies Home Journal Magazine. I purchased a copy of the pattern online and made my own version.

Kaye England's Voices of the Past: A History of Women's Lives in PatchworkVolumee II includes an essay and quilt pattern for Louisa May Alcott

Terry Clothier Thompson offered Louise May Alcott: Quilts of Her Life, Her Work, Her Heart in 2008.

 The applique quilt features scenes from the life of the Alcott family.

See more Little Women quilts:

International Quilt Study Center and Museum:

https://www.quiltstudy.org/quilt/20060530002

The Quilt Index

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4F-88-146

The Quilt Show:

https://thequiltshow.com/see-quilts/quilt-gallery/item/11275-little-women

Quiltville Blogspot:

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2013/05/susans-little-women-quilt.html

Little Women Quilt from Flickr

https://www.flickr.com/photos/luanarubin/26664280967/

The Enchanted Quilters of Lopez Island on Karen Alexander's collection

http://enchantedquiltersoflopezisland.blogspot.com/2015/02/who-is-marion-cheever-whiteside-newton.html?m=1

Birthday, Buying Spree & News

For my birthday our son filled dad's jukebox with 45s that I had owned when I was a teen. The jukebox is in the basement and too heavy to remove so we are going to embrace it. Our son had read my blog post about The Music I Grew Up With as a guide to what records to buy.

My dad bought this 1970s Seeburg Firestar from a local biker bar

Our son also made me dinner and gave me a collection of loose teas. So far they are very good!

My brother gave me a gift certificate to Monk's Bread and I got this great box of bread, biscotti, and preserves. They are made by Trappist Monks in Genesee, NY.

We can add more records to the jukebox so on Sunday after visiting the Clawson farmer's market I ran down to the Royal Oak flea market where I found hundreds of 45 records to choose from! I came home with:
Chicago-Does Anyone Really Know What Time It s
Dionne Warwick-PIromises, Promises and also Say a Little Prayer
Frank & Nancy Sinatra-Something Stupid
Barry McGuire-Eve of Destruction.
Marvin Gaye -Mercy, Mercy and also Ain't no Mountain High Enough
Bob Dylan-Spanish is the Loving Tongue
The Association-Windy

And I picked up other treasures.

My husband always talked about Rootie Kazootie and the Pineapple Pies which he loved as a boy in the 1950s. He asked for a pineapple pie, and his mom made him one. For over forty years he has asked me to make a pineapple pie. I think I did--once--perhaps it is time to make another. After revisiting this book, I am sure he will be dreaming of them again.

I had not read Robert Pinksky so picked up this 2011 volume of his poetry. A quilting friend was a relative and had met him at family gatherings when she was young.

I added a few pieces to my huge sheet music collection. I couldn't resist My Wife's Gone to the Country Hurrah! Hurrah! with Irving Berlin as one of the writers.

And I picked up some old pops songs and this adorable cover of Polly Wolly Doodle, a song our infant son loved me to sing to him.

The farm market is filled with goodies this time of year. Wonderful local corn, green and wax beans, sweet peppers, and beets came home with us. Also peaches and nectarines and heirloom tomatoes.

My husband baked bread yesterday, his favorite oatmeal. I made bread with apples from our apple trees!

I placed my first order to Penzy's Spices, lured by the excellent freebies. I bought a four-jar set of spices to make salad dressings and also lemon pepper (without salt) that uses real lemon peel. I got free shallots and cinnamon sugar, and some sample bay leaves, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks were thrown in too!

I  entered a coloring contest for National Coloringbook Day sponsored by Dover Publications. I won these coloring books!

Last week I took this quilt to show and tell in my weekly group. Remembrance of Things Past was made for a quilt guild challenge at Capital City Quilt Guild in Lansing, Michigan many years ago. The center is appliqued with colored pencil details. The fabrics, image scans, and embellishments all have some memories or ambiance of memories.

Remembrance of Things Past by Nancy A. Bekofske

detail of Remembrance of Things Past by Nancy A. Bekofske

In the photo below you can see the patch for Lawrence Tech where my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer taught mathematics; my brother later graduated from Lawrence Tech. Also, the SSX-1 submarine patch from my uncle Dave Ramer who worked on the sub in the 1960s.

detail of Remembrance of Things Past by Nancy A. Bekofske

My uncle Dave Ramer

my grandmother Evelyn Greenwood Ramer on the SSX-1

my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer on the SSX-1

I have pinback buttons on the quilt including Give Earth a Chance from the first Earth Day and an ERA button; also a scanned photo of our dog Kili (photo above) and a childhood hair ribbon, a mushroom pin I gave Mom. Note the scanned photo of Niagara Falls.

I am working on many projects, as usual: hand quilting my Peter Pan Story Book quilt, finishing my challenge quilt, and working on making hexies.

 It is hard to believe that September is quickly coming! Where did the summer go?

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

After reading Wiley Cash's fantastic historical fiction novel The Last Ballad I bought A Land More Kind Than Home. I sped through this Southern Gothic novel, its dark and unsettling sense of dread drawing my interest. The details of place and culture are outside my scope of experience, but the insights into human nature are universal.

A con-man turned preacher takes over a church. Hidden from view by newspapers taped over the windows, worship involves faith healing, poison, fire, and snakes. Also hidden from view is the pastor's abuse of power over his parishioners and their blind trust that allows him full rein.

"It was like Mama was lost in the desert and had gotten so thirsty that she was willing to see anything that might make her feel better about being lost." from A Land More Kind Than Home

One woman dares stand up to the pastor and demands the children stay out of worship. She teaches them in Sunday School in her home. It is her way of protecting them. She knows first hand that the pastor is a dangerous false prophet and has singled her out as his enemy.

"People out in these parts can take hold of religion like it's a drug, and they don't want to give it up once they've got hold of it." from A Land More Kind Than Home

Most affecting in the novel are the stories of the children. They see things that are hidden and confusing, and ultimately are targeted by the pastor.

When a child dies during worship an investigation ensues; the action rises to propel the reader to the conclusion, in which a form of justice dealt out, after which the community begins to heal.

"It's a good thing to see that people can heal after they've been broken, that they can change and become something different from what they were before. Churches are like that. The living church is made of people, and it can grow sick and break just like people can, and sometimes churches can die just like people died...A church can be healed, and it can be saved like people can be saved." from A Land More Kind Than Home

Cash was inspired by a true story. 

Getting Personal

A pastor can have so much power because of his position, and abuse of that power can become easy. Pastors are lionized, congregants sometimes flocking around like groupies. They are allowed into the homes and souls of their congregants. When my husband was in active ministry, the denomination required education in boundaries and sexual abuse. A pastor once asked if that meant that clergy could not ever date a parishioner; basically, the answer was sure, if you intend to marry them. We knew several pastors who did marry parishioners. And we heard of pastors who had sexual relationships that were illicit. Some, not all, lost their ordination.

The title is from Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again:

"Something has spoken to me in the night, burning the tapers of the waning year; something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die, I know not where. Saying: “To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, toward which the conscience of the world is tending-a wind is rising, and the rivers flow.”

The Turned-Intos by Elizabeth Gordon

The Turned-Intos: Jane Elizabeth discovers the Garden Folk by Elizabeth Gordon was first published in 1920 by P. F. Volland in Great Britain. I have an American copy printed by Wise Book Company in 1935. The book is illustrated by Janet Laura Scott.

The book is dedicated to "children who love to work in gardens and who enjoy the big out-of-doors and the little friends who live there."

The Garden Folk mentioned are butterflies and insects, frogs and spiders, bees and hornets.

 Most of the full-page illustrations feature Jane Elizabeth in gardens.

  A few show Jane Elizabeth with her family or at home.

The cricket on the hearth harkens back to the Christmas story by Charles Dickens!

 Jane Elizabeth discovers a ladybug, below, while her cat looks on.

Jane Elizabeth stitching in the garden with her dollies looking on.

 Jane Elizabeth is not afraid of the spider.

 Jane Elizabeth and the honeybees.

 Jane Elizabeth in the cottage garden.

 And skipping through the fields after the butterflies.

This was meant to be a teaching book. Teaching aids include a vocabulary analysis and activities for each chapter.

Next week I will share the illustrations of the Garden Folk!