April 7, 2025
Introduction: In this two-part article, Katie Rebecca Merkley writes of her lifelong love of the author Louisa May Alcott, especially her novel “Little Women.” Katie specializes in U.S. research for family history, enjoys writing and researching, and is developing curricula for teaching children genealogy.
Not everyone is descended from famous authors of olden times, but we can still feel a genealogical connection because our ancestors may have been influenced by their works. One such writer for me is Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), who was a popular author in her day and still is.
I discovered her by reading Little Women as a girl. Later, I found more of her books in the public library and my library app, including the sequel to Little Women titled Little Men. When I was dating my husband, I made him watch the latest movie adaptation of Little Women with me.
Modern authors and publishers post about their newest books on social media. Likewise, our ancestors had newspapers to inform them of their favorite authors. This two-part series will examine some of Louisa May Alcott’s appearances in newspapers during her lifetime.
How She Wrote
A newspaper reporter in 1886 wrote about how different authors of the time wrote their books. One of the authors featured in this article was Louisa May Alcott. Alcott’s writing style involved forming plots in her head and then writing them down “as if she were copying.” She did not have a study, being content to use an atlas as a lap desk. She seldom wrote in her hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, but preferred to rent a room in Boston. There, she would write for 14 hours at a time, “scarcely tasting food until the work was done.”
The report of Miss Alcott writing for hours at a time without eating is reminiscent of Jo in Little Women, the character who is based on Alcott herself.
Some Stories & Reviews Published in Newspapers
“Jimmy’s Cruise on the Pinafore”
Many stories from a variety of authors were published in newspapers, especially in the 19th century. I found a Louisa May Alcott story published by the Kalamazoo Gazette in 1879.
The story is about a poor Boston boy named Jimmy Nelson. His sister was sick and needed to go to the country, but his parents couldn’t afford it. As Jimmy was figuring out how to earn money to send his sister to the country, his friend approached him and informed him that “some folks are going to get [the play Pinafore] up with children to do it” and those who got in would get paid. Jimmy and his friend, Willy, went to the auditions the next day and got into the play. The play provided Jimmy with enough money not only to send his family to the country but also to get himself nicer clothes and presents for his sister.
When the story was first published, newspaper subscribers who liked the extract would have gone to their local bookshop to get a printed copy of the complete story. A quick Google search revealed that “Jimmy’s Cruise on the Pinafore” was part of a collection of stories called Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag, which was published in multiple volumes. Volume 5 was entitled Jimmy’s Cruise in the Pinafore and Other Stories.
Advertisements & Reviews of Hospital Sketches
Hospital Sketches, a book featuring four sketches of Alcott’s experiences as a nurse during the Civil War, helped Louisa May Alcott become famous. Initially, the individual sketches were each published in the newspaper Commonwealth, in Boston, Massachusetts, before being compiled into a book and published in 1863.
This photo of Alcott was taken in 1862 shortly before she began working as a nurse. The picture is from “Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals” by Ednah Dow Cheney, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1919.
The following newspaper advertisement announces the upcoming publication of the book Hospital Sketches, with “large additions, and the author’s last corrections,” and warns:
“No republication of the new chapters will be permitted in any journal.”
I found reviews of this book in GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives. Reviews of stories published in newspapers seem the most likely ancestor of Amazon and Google reviews. Two of these are shown below.
This first review was originally published in the newspaper New York Evangelist, and reprinted in the Boston paper Commonwealth. This review describes the story as a “graphic narrative of army hospital life” with scenes of terror, pathos, and humor.
Whether they read the stories separately in the newspaper or all together in the book, many people wrote about how much they liked them, such as the comments shown below.
Were other stories by Louisa May Alcott also published in newspapers? In Little Women, Jo published stories in the newspaper anonymously. She had written sensational stories that would sell but did not want her family to know she had written them.
If this was based on real life, then there would be more stories written by Louisa May Alcott in the newspapers, but they would not come up by searching for her name. It is known she occasionally published under the pen name A. M. Barnard, and she may have used other pseudonyms.
Aside from story extracts, reviews and advertisements for her books, some newspapers published biographical sketches of Louisa May Alcott. Stay tuned for the next article in this series to learn more!
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Note on the header image: Louisa May Alcott, from “Louisa May Alcott, Her Life, Letters, and Journals,” published by Little, Brown & Co, Boston, 1889. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
