Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Louisa and her sisters, Elizabeth, May and Amy, were schooled by their father, Bronson Alcott. Their mother, Abigail May, raised the girls to be practical Christians.
Louisa moved with her family to the Boston/Concord area of Massachusetts when she was quite young. This is where Louisa was raised and lived out most of her life.
Bronson Alcott founded several schools over the years, but all of them failed. He seldom worked. The financial support of the family fell to his wife and children and Louisa's childhood was plagued by poverty. As she grew older, she was determined to give the family the things she felt they deserved. Otherwise, she was generally happy with her life.
Louisa's tomboy escapes kept her busy. "No boy could be my friend until I had beaten him in a race and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences..." Later, the character of Jo in Louisa's book Little Women would be created in Louisa's image. Yes, Jo was Louisa.
Louisa made many visits to Ralph Waldo Emerson's library while she was growing up. She loved books and she loved to write. She had a vivid imagination that knew no bounds. She wrote plays, which she and her sisters performed in the family parlor for relatives and friends. Louisa often played the starring role, and always wished to play the part of ghosts, villains, queens, pirates and bandits.
By 1847, Louisa had had enough of being poor. She vowed, "I will do something by and by. Don't care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I'll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won't!"
For a time, Louisa worked at any job she could find. In her spare time, she could always be found writing. She began to send poems and stories to magazines and publishers and was always delighted when they sold and she had a bit of extra money. Her first book, Flower Fables, was published in 1854.
In 1862, Louisa traveled to Washington D.C., feeling that she should do her part during the Civil War. Since she couldn't fight, she decided to work as a Civil War nurse. Within a month she came down with typhoid and almost died. While she was ill, a doctor gave her medicine that contained mercury, which poisoned her. Louisa was forced to return home.
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