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Elizabeth Alcott (1835-1858) was the third oldest daughter in the Alcott family.  Lizzie, as her sisters called her, was the model for “Beth March” in Louisa May Alcott’s book Little Women.  Like the character in the book, Lizzie was very fond of cats, dolls, and music.  Her portrait hangs on the Dining Room wall above the melodeon, a musical instrument which Lizzie enjoyed playing.

A melodeon is a keyboard instrument similar to an organ, and is also called a reed organ.  A musician plays the keyboard while working the pedals close to the floor underneath the melodeon. Operating the pedals pushes wind through a bellows across reeds to make the sound.  This rosewood melodeon was made in about 1852 in New Haven, Connecticut.

~ Questions to ponder ~

• What other musical instruments resemble the melodeon?  What makes those instruments different from the melodeon?
• Lizzie Alcott was very shy.  How might playing the melodeon help Lizzie to express herself?
• In what different creative ways do your friends and your family members express themselves?  How do you express yourself creatively?

This sausage-shaped pillow appears in an 1840s Alcott family journal, in a drawing by Lizzie.  Her assignment was to make a vocabulary list with a drawing and a definition for each word.  Lizzie drew a picture of the pillow to illustrate the word bolster, which she defined as “pillow.”  

Her sister Louisa also wrote about the pillow in Part II of Little Women (Chapter IX, “Tender Troubles”):  “If ‘the sausage,’ as they called it, stood on end, it was a sign that [Laurie] might approach and repose; but if it laid flat across the sofa, woe to the man, woman or child who dared disturb it.”

It was said that Louisa herself used the pillow to let friends and family know what kind of mood she was in before they saw her.  If the pillow stood upright on the sofa, it signaled that she was in a good mood and willing to talk to people.  However, if the pillow was found to be lying down, people should not bother Louisa that day, since she was not likely to be very good company—or perhaps she just needed some “alone time” to get her writing done.

~ Questions to ponder ~

• How do you let people know how you are feeling? 
• Do you think Louisa’s mood pillow was a good way to tell others how she was feeling?

A small trunk was used by Louisa and her sisters, Anna and Abby May (May’s name before she shortened it to just “May”), to hold the costumes they wore in theatrical presentations they performed for friends and family.  The pair of rust-colored leather boots were worn by Louisa when she portrayed dashing heroes such as  “Rodolpho” in Norna; or, The Witch’s Curse, a play she and Anna wrote together when they were young.  The boots are often called Roderigo’s boots, since that was the hero role “Jo March” took on in the play described in Chapter I of Little Women, “Playing Pilgrims.”

The drawing done by May, visible on the shelf near the trunk, shows Louisa playing the hero role of “Roderigo” and wearing the same boots displayed in the trunk.  Meanwhile, Anna is up above in a homemade “tower” (a wooden window cut-out placed atop a dresser) playing the heroine role of  “Princess Zara.” 

 When the Alcott sisters were young, they performed their plays in the barn of Hillside, the house next door to Orchard House that they lived in during the 1840s.  Years later, their plays were performed in the Dining Room of Orchard House for audiences of friends and neighbors gathered in the Parlor.  The sisters would run up the back stairs to May’s Room to change costumes for different scenes in the play.

Louisa, Anna, May, and several of their friends were also part of The Concord Dramatic Union, a group of Concordians who enjoyed acting and often put on plays for the benefit of charitable causes.  It is said that Anna and John Pratt fell in love when they were cast opposite one another in one of these plays, The Loan of a Lover. 

~ Questions to ponder ~

• What other kinds of artistic activities did the Alcott girls enjoy?
• Read Chapter I of Little Women, “Playing Pilgrims.”  What happens during the play in the story?  What do you learn about each of the girls as they rehearse together?  (Note:  Read Chapter II of Little Women, “A Merry Christmas,” to find out what happens when they perform the play!)
• Only professional photographers owned cameras at the time May drew the picture of her sisters performing a play.  Why do you think she chose to make this drawing?  What memories would you best like to capture in a drawing right now?

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) created a daily schedule for his daughters in 1846, when the family lived next door to Orchard House on Lexington Road, in a home they called Hillside (now called The Wayside, a National Park site).  At that time, Anna was 16, Louisa was 14, Lizzie was 11, and Abby May was 6 years old.  Although now and then the girls did attend school, most of the time they were taught by their parents at home.  A schedule helped to keep order in a household that could be chaotic at times, with everyone home and attending to work, play, and school lessons.  Mr. Alcott made sure that the schedule included time for all those activities.

Miss Foord and Mr. Lane, whose names appear on the schedule, were two teachers who helped to educate the Alcott girls at home when they were living in Hillside.  Miss Foord also taught the Emerson children, while Mr. Lane had lived with the Alcotts at Fruitlands (Harvard, MA) and was staying with them again at the time this schedule was written.

~ Questions to ponder ~

• What time does the family get up?  What time do they go to bed?
• After everyone is out of bed, the first thing on the schedule is “Bathe”—which meant a cold shower each morning!  Why do you think Mr. Alcott thought that was important for his family?
• What time are the children’s lessons on the schedule?
• How much time is set aside for reading?
• How much time do the children have for play?  Why do you think the parents felt that was important?
• What time is scheduled for chores (called “Duties,” “Labor,” or “Chares”)?  What else does the schedule say about chores?  What chores do you do to help your family?
• What other activities are scheduled?
• What rules are listed at the bottom of the schedule?  Why do you think Mr. Alcott felt those rules were important to list?  Do you think his children followed the rules?
• Is there anything else you think should be on the schedule, or anything you think should not be there?  What would you put on your own schedule?

Mr. Alcott’s youngest daughter, May, painted two lines by the poet William Ellery Channing above the fireplace in the Study for her father:

The hills are reared, the seas are scooped in vain,

If learnings' altar vanish from the plain.

Amos Bronson Alcott grew up on a farm in Connecticut and as a youth had very little formal schooling.  However, he loved to read and was self-taught most of his life.  Later, when he became a schoolteacher, he believed that children should be participants in their own education, learning by discussing ideas and asking questions, not just by memorizing facts.  His classrooms contained many books, beautiful art, and even individual desks for the students, instead of long, hard benches.  Mr. Alcott thought that physical exercise, field trips, and nature studies were important to learning as well. 

Mr. Alcott also believed that all children should receive an education, regardless of gender or race.  During the 1830s, a young black student named Susan Robinson attended one of the schools Mr. Alcott had opened in Boston.  Despite the criticism he received for admitting her, Mr. Alcott kept her as a pupil.  Later, Mrs. Alcott and Louisa helped black adults learn to read at a time when it was illegal in some states for them to receive an education.

One of the most important educational lessons Mr. and Mrs. Alcott taught their daughters was to begin to keep a journal as soon as they had learned to write.  Both of them felt that writing in a journal helped children to think, to record their thoughts, and to express their feelings by the act of writing them down.  They both kept journals themselves, and encouraged their daughters to share their writings with each other.  Mrs. Alcott also instituted a “post office” within the family so the girls could write letters to each other during the day.

~ Questions to ponder ~

• What does the quote over the fireplace say about the importance of education?
• If you could write a favorite saying or poem on the wall, what would it be?
• Why did Mr. Alcott feel that children should participate in their own education?
• Why did Mr. Alcott furnish his classrooms the way he did?
• How did keeping a post office in the house help children with their writing?  What would you write in a letter to a member of your family?
• What educational ideas that Mr. Alcott believed were important for his students do we still have in our schools today?