Book Reviewed: Louisa on the Front Lines: Louisa May Alcott in the Civil War, by Samantha Seiple

Louisa

Many readers of literature like myself know Louisa May Alcott as the author of “Little Women.” She was born to a loving family; her mother and sisters bonded like true friends. But her journey for thirty-six years until Little Women was published was not smooth. She improvised a wardrobe from the ragbag to the later years; she witnessed the hardship of Marmee, her beloved mother who had borne the hard years so bravely, and a father immersed deeply in philosophy never understood the generally accepted paternal obligations. Young Louisa was encumbered with family responsibilities, moved with the frequency and restlessness. In her relatively short life of fifty-six years, she lived in her home state of Massachusetts, New York, and Europe as governess to Anna Weld, and a Grand Tour of her own with her sister.

One of the highlights of Alcott’s amazing life besides her work in literature was zeal for her beliefs that all people are born equal. She was an ardent abolitionist and fierce fighter for equal rights. The future of suffrage movement that paved the way for the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that granted American women the right to vote, a right commonly known as women's suffrage was born out of passion for equality in Alcott household. Louisa’s patriotism was reflected when she chose to volunteer to work as a nurse during the Civil War. Her coworkers included Walt Whitman and John Burroughs at the Union Hospital at Georgetown in Washington D.C. During her younger days in Massachusetts, she had the privilege of being in the illustrious company of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frank Sanborn, Elizabeth Peabody, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Theodore Parker.

The study of Louisa May Alcott and her writings are illustrated in several books including John Matteson’s acclaimed book in 2007 that won the Pulitzer Prize; the 2009 PBS documentary Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind “Little Women” directed by Nancy Porter; and the work of UNC professor Daniel Shealy. Many of the books including the current t book accounts for influence of Abigail Alcott, the mother of Louisa Alcott on Louisa’s thinking and writing. It is well known that Abigail was the model for Marmee in Little Women, and Alcott scholars have appreciated how she encouraged her daughter to become a writer and politically active for abolition, equality and women’s rights. In 1877, the New England Woman Suffrage Association campaigned to allow women to vote in local town meetings. Later the state of Massachusetts voted to pass the measure.

In this book, the author focuses on Louisa Alcott’s work as a nurse that highlighted the unacceptable conditions in military hospitals and the sufferings endured by the soldiers of civil war. The narrative method employed by the author is engaging to connect with her stories and sometimes breaks off too quickly. For example, Alcott’s relationship with Anna Weld ends abruptly in Switzerland. In the next paragraph we find she is flying to Paris. There are some interesting day-day incidents at the Switzerland hotel when Louisa Alcott comes to meet the Polk family from Tennessee. Colonel Andrew Polk one of the wealthiest plantation owners had fought for confederate army and badly wounded. The author’s work has a marked appreciation of Alcott’s work as a nurse. Considering many scholarly works on Alcott’s life, this work with reference to her career in nursing stands out as a distinct work of literature.