Eden's Outcasts (68 page)

24.
L. M. Alcott, 10 December 1843,
Journals
, 47.

25.
L. M. Alcott, 1 September 1843,
Journals
, 45.

CHAPTER SIX: FIRST FRUITS

1.
This judgment as to Anna's pervading optimism is based on the surviving record. Her journal entries from the fall and winter, like some of Louisa's, were removed and destroyed by Bronson.

2.
Anna Alcott, Journal, 24 June 1843, in Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 93.

3.
A. B. Alcott to Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, Fruitlands, 24 June 1843, in
Letters
, 105.

4.
Ibid.
,
105–06.

5.
Charles Lane, “To Elizabeth,” in Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 94.

6.
Abigail May Alcott, Diary, 25 June 1843, in Bedell,
Alcotts
, 215.

7.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 94.

8.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 2 July 1843, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals,
153.

9.
L. M. Alcott, 24 September 1843,
Journals
, 45.

10.
L. M. Alcott, 23 December 1843,
Journals
, 48.

11.
L. M. Alcott, 25 December 1843,
Journals
, 50. Louisa was somewhat inconsistent in pinpointing the time when she first became aware of life's difficulty. She wrote else where that “the trials of life” did not begin for her until the family moved to Hillside. L.M. Alcott, “Recollections of My Childhood,” in Shealy, ed.,
Alcott
, 36.

12.
L. M. Alcott, n.d. 1843,
Journals
, 51. Remarkably, although her health had radically declined, Louisa continued to go for runs until the summer before her death.
Journals
, 17 and 18 July 1887, 307.

13.
L. M. Alcott, n.d. 1843,
Journals
, 51.

14.
Emerson,
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks
, VIII, 433.

15.
Ibid.

16.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 24 July 1843, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 153.

17.
Abigail May Alcott to Charles May, 6 November 1843, MS Am 1130.9(25), Houghton Library, Harvard University.

18.
Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. May, 4 November 1843, MS Am 1130.9(25).

19.
L. M. Alcott, “Transcendental Wild Oats,” in Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 163.

20.
Ibid., 162–63.

21.
Ibid., 163.

22.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for August 1843, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 154.

23.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 26 August 1843, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 155.

24.
Emerson, “New England Reformers,” in
Essays and Lectures
, 591–92.

25.
Ibid., 591.

26.
Charles Lane to William Oldham, 29 September 1843, in Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 94.

27.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 39.

28.
Ibid., 121; Stern,
Louisa May Alcott
, 38.

29.
Journal of Isaac Hecker, in Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 76–77.

30.
Ibid., 77.

31.
Ibid., 76.

32.
Ibid., 78.

33.
Ibid., 84.

34.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 85.

35.
Ibid., 79.

36.
Ibid., 81.

37.
Ibid.
,
82.

38.
Ibid., 85.

39.
Journal of Isaac Hecker, in Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 84.

40.
L. M. Alcott, 8 October 1843,
Journals,
46.

41.
L. M. Alcott, 12 October 1843,
Journals
, 46.

42.
L. M. Alcott, 2 November 1843,
Journals
, 47.

43.
Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. May, Fruitlands, n.d., MS Am 1130.9(25).

44.
Ralph Waldo Emerson to Margaret Fuller, Concord, 7 August 1843, in
Letters
, III, 196.

CHAPTER SEVEN: LOST ILLUSIONS

1.
Charles Lane, “A Day with the Shakers,” in Fogarty, comp.,
American Utopianism
, 22. Although Lane reported the use of coffee and tea among the Harvard Shakers, these substances were strongly discouraged in the typical Shaker community. Either there was some unusual laxity in the Harvard colony, or Lane was mistaken about these iniquities.

2.
Ibid., 23.

3.
Holloway,
Heavens
, 67.

4.
Ibid., 69.

5.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 26 August 1843, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 154.

6.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 121.

7.
Anna Alcott to Abigail May Alcott, Fruitlands, n.d., Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Mass.

8.
L. M. Alcott, 12 October 1843,
Journals
, 46.

9.
L. M. Alcott, 2 November 1843,
Journals
, 46–47.

10.
L. M. Alcott, 14 September 1843,
Journals
, 45.

11.
L. M. Alcott, 8 October 1843,
Journals
, 46.

12.
Dahlstrand,
Amos Bronson Alcott
, 198.

13.
L. M. Alcott, “Transcendental Wild Oats,” in Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 165.

14.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 114–15.

15.
Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. May, Fruitlands, n.d., MS Am 1130.9(25), Houghton Library, Harvard University.

16.
Bedell,
Alcotts
, 226.

17.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 120.

18.
Ralph Waldo Emerson to Margaret Fuller, Concord, 17 December 1843, in
Selected Letters
, 297.

19.
Elbert,
Hunger for Home
, 60.

20.
Bunyan,
Pilgrim's Progress
, 13.

21.
Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. May, 11 November 1843, MS Am 1130.9(25).

22.
Abigail May Alcott to Charles May, 6 November 1843, MS Am 1130.9(25).

23.
Alcott biographer Madelon Bedell has even surmised a budding homosexual liaison between Alcott and Lane, though this supposition appears to rest more on imagination than on evidence. Bedell,
Alcotts
, 228.

24.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 122–23.

25.
L. M. Alcott, 20 November 1843,
Journals
, 47.

26.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 110–11.

27.
Charles Lane to William Oldham, quoted in William Harry Harland, “Bronson Alcott's English Friends,” Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Mass.

28.
Ralph Waldo Emerson to Margaret Fuller, Concord, 17 December 1843, in
Selected Letters
, 297.

29.
L. M. Alcott, 10 December 1843,
Journals
, 47.

30.
L. M. Alcott, October 1856,
Journals
, 79.

31.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 1 January 1844, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 156.

32.
Abigail May Alcott to Samuel J. May, 11 January 1844, in Bedell,
Alcotts
, 231.

33.
L. M. Alcott, “Transcendental Wild Oats,” 170–72.

34.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 127.

35.
A. B. Alcott to Junius S. Alcott, Concord, 28 October 1844, in
Letters
, 115.

CHAPTER EIGHT: FATHER AND DAUGHTER

1.
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody to Sophia Hawthorne, in Mellow,
Nathaniel Hawthorne
, 405.

2.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 3 February 1844, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 157.

3.
A. B. Alcott to Junius S. Alcott, Still River, Mass., 15 June 1844, in
Letters
, 111.

4.
Mike Volmar, Curator, Fruitlands Museum, e-mail message to author, 30 November 2006.

5.
Bedell,
Alcotts
, 292.

6.
Sears, comp.,
Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands
, 122.

7.
Bedell,
Alcotts
, 233.

8.
Swayne,
Story of Concord
, 135.

9.
A. B. Alcott, 9 February 1851,
Journals
, 241.

10.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 28 January 1844, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 157.

11.
Bedell,
Alcotts
, 300.

12.
N. Hawthorne, “The Artist of the Beautiful,” in
Tales and Sketches
, 920.

13.
A. B. Alcott, 6 October 1851,
Journals
, 254.

14.
N. Hawthorne, “The Hall of Fantasy,” in
Tales and Sketches
, 1492.

15.
N. Hawthorne, “The Custom-House,” in
Collected Novels
, 133, 140.

16.
Emerson,
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks
, IX, 86.

17.
Emerson, “New England Reformers,” in
Essays and Lectures
, 598.

18.
As literary critic Jeffrey S. Cramer has observed, one of the principles that Thoreau gleaned from Fruitlands was a philosophical rejection of animal labor. Thoreau expressed Alcott's thoughts on the subject in a well-turned chiasmus: “I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men.” Thoreau added that no nation of philosophers would consent to the use of animal labor. However, he noted with a glint of Yankee practicality, “There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers.” Thoreau,
Walden
, 54.

19.
A. B. Alcott to Junius S. Alcott, Boston, 7 December 1850, in
Letters
, 160.

20.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 22 March 1844, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 158.

21.
Abigail May Alcott, Journal Entry for 23 May 1844, in A. B. Alcott,
Journals
, 158.

22.
Annie M. L. Clark,
The Alcotts in Harvard
, in Shealy, ed.,
Alcott
, 120.

23.
Frederick L. H. Willis,
Alcott Memoirs,
in Shealy, ed.,
Alcott
, 177.

24.
Ibid.
,
177–78.

25.
Ibid.
,
171.

26.
Clark,
The Alcotts in Harvard
, 121.