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Concord boasts several house museums, but one stands apart as a place of pilgrimage. Filled with authentic Alcott furniture and belongings, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, where Little Women was written and set, looks and feels as if the family just stepped out for a moment. The passion exhibited by more than 50,000 people who tour inside the house each year and more than 100,000 who visit the grounds is unsurpassed. Because Little Women has been translated into more than 50 languages, visitors from around the world flock to the site. Orchard House Executive Director, Jan Turnquist, says, “Louisa May Alcott’s legacy is large and powerful because, paradoxically, she so successfully shares the small and vulnerable. She juxtaposes humor and sorrow just as life does. She bares her soul with all its emotion—painful and joyous— and with all its flaws and strengths.” Turnquist continues, “I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the enormous impact of Alcott and her writing on thousands of Orchard House visitors. They share stories that reveal how Alcott’s works have moved their minds and spirits—even how it has changed their lives. When asked, ‘Why does Louisa so deeply touch readers and forge such a powerful bond, transcending time, place,
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Discover CONCORD
| Summer 2022
Beyond Words: The Depth of Louisa May Alcott’s Legacy BY SUSAN BAILEY culture, and even death?’ I answer, because she so profoundly connects with them. Louisa reaches directly from her heart to that of her reader revealing her authentic self, warts and all. The particulars of her story and of visitors’ stories vary but the common denominator is human connection.” Stories of connection are as numerous and diverse as Alcott enthusiasts themselves, grounded in the present moment as if Louisa and her family were alive today. Biographer John Matteson’s rapport with Louisa and her father Bronson resulted in his Pulitzer prize-winning dual biography, Eden’s Outcasts. “I lived my biography of Louisa,” he said. “This period in my life was the ideal preparation for an Alcott scholar. What better biographer of Bronson, a quixotic, education–obsessed man with a verbally gifted daughter, than another quixotic, education–obsessed man with a verbally gifted daughter? I am convinced that writing Eden’s Outcasts made me a better,
Orchard House
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Louisa May Alcott
more attentive father. I also know that my experience as a hands-on dad enabled me to understand Bronson and Louisa with a rare kind of intimacy and familiarity.” Author Susan Cheever speaks of Orchard House in her 2010 book, Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography: “I was thrilled to be in the presence of the real thing, the place where the writing of Little Women occurred. . . as if some alchemy in the wood might pass into my own restless spirit. I couldn’t wait to get home to the book.” Celebrated photographer, Annie Leibovitz, who was interviewed for Turnquist’s Emmy award-winning documentary, “Orchard
