Louisa May Alcott Society

The Louisa May Alcott Society is delighted to announce the recipients of its 2026 awards for scholarly excellence in Alcott studies. The following awards were announced at our business meeting at the American Literature Association Conference in Chicago last week. Beverly Lyon Clark Article Prize The Beverly Lyon Clark Article Prize Committee is pleased to announce that the 2026 prize goes to Ariel Little for “‘Health Should Come First’: Alcott’s Model of Hygienic Female Development in Eight Cousins.” Little’s essay applies the nineteenth-century cultural concept of “hygiene” to offer an insightful reading of Rose’s character development, connecting her embrace of hygienic principles to her growing agency as a woman. Drawing on recent scholarship alongside original texts by nineteenth-century women doctors and health care professionals, Little persuasively demonstrates that for Alcott, good health was not simply an end in itself but a means by which women could achieve greater indepen...

  The Alcott Society is offering up to three travel grants of $400 each to support students and non-tenure-track members of the Society to present on Alcott at an academic conference in the 2026 calendar year.  These grants, supported financially by the Alcott Society and its members and donors, are meant to encourage Alcott scholarship and to honor the career and memory of Sarah Elbert , a literary historian whose important research charted exciting new paths for Alcott scholarship. Applying is easy. Please just send the abstract for your paper, information about its acceptance and conference venue, and a one-page vita to Marlowe Daly-Galeano at hmdalygaleano@lcsc.edu. We encourage students and NTT members of the Society to see these travel grants as a possible source for financial support for sharing their Alcott research with a larger audience.

 Thanks to all who joined our Celebrating Alcott event on November 30. If you were not able to attend, the link to the recording will be available for the next few months. https://lcsc.zoom.us/rec/share/StuUlQ3rA5QZsp_ClL_wFRXZPQtmcuoHdI24LbQHsn6v6xHko3MFPTp0UfAvkn0x.fSSbZ1rRo8Y842Fs

Call for Papers:  The Louisa May Alcott Society is sponsoring two panels at the  American Literature Association Conference  May 20-23, 2026  Chicago, Illinois.   I. Alcott and Europe  While the work of Louisa May Alcott makes an important contribution to nineteenth-century conversations about nation-building, democracy, and citizenship in America, Alcott also represents varied and complex ideas about international identities and perspectives. For this panel, we invite papers that consider Alcott and Alcott studies in a transatlantic rather than purely national context. The focus of this panel is Alcott and Europe, conceived broadly. In Shawl-Straps, the lightly fictionalized account of her European travels with May Alcott and Alice Barton, Louisa May Alcott offered an enticing invitation to would-be travelers, encouraging them to try the Grand Tour for themselves: “Bring home empty trunks if you will, but heads full of new and larger ideas, hearts r...

You are invited to our annual virtual celebration! Celebrating Alcott! Join us for a virtual celebration on November 30 at 12 pm PST / 1 pm MST / 2 pm CST / 3 pm EST.   Featuring speakers Lauren Hehmeyer, editor of   Beyond Little Women: The Secondary Works of Louisa May Alcott   and Liz Rosenberg, editor of   A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott   This one-hour event will be held on Zoom:   https://lcsc.zoom.us/j/7967888338 .   For more information, contact Marlowe Daly-Galeano at   hmdalygaleano@lcsc.edu  

At the Louisa May Alcott Society's annual business meeting in Boston this year,  Max   L.   Chapnick  was awarded the Beverly Lyon Clark Article Prize  for his essay, "Duty and Ambition in Louisa May Alcott Poems, Old and New."  Committee members had this to say about the essay: Chapnick's article "makes significant new contributions ... by attending to Alcott’s poetry, which is understudied, attributing previously unattributed poems to Alcott and offering a compelling discussion of their significance.   Max ’s discussion asserts that these poems (and his discussion of them) contributes to the case for the other previously unattributed stories he has identified. I admire the readings he offers of the individual poems. He both situates them within the broader context of 19th century poetry by women and within Alcott’s body of work, offering an elegant argument for how these poems contribute to our understanding of the tension between duty and ambit...

The Alcott Society is offering up to three travel grants of $400 each to support students and non-tenure-track members of the Society to attend present on Alcott at an academic conference in the 2025 calendar year.  These grants, supported financially by the Alcott Society and its members and donors, are meant to encourage Alcott scholarship and to honor the career and memory of Sarah Elbert, a literary historian whose important research charted exciting new paths for Alcott scholarship. Applying is easy. Please just send the abstract for your paper, information about its acceptance and conference venue, and a one-page vita to Marlowe Daly-Galeano at hmdalygaleano@lcsc.edu. We encourage students and NTT members of the Society to see these travel grants as a possible source for financial support for sharing their Alcott research with a larger audience.

The following Emerson Society CFP may be of interest to some of our members.  Ralph Waldo Emerson Society  Emersonian Revolutions Today   Thoreau Annual Gathering,  July 9 – 13, 2025    Bronson Alcott in 1871 wrote that “He helps us most who helps us to answer our own questions. [Emerson] gets us to do our own work, does not do it for us. He does his work well, for he never produces any finished piece of work. That is his great excellence.”  As well, Theodore Parker notes that “Emerson belongs to the exceptional literature of the times – and while his culture joins him to the history of man, his ideas and whole life enable him to represent also the nature of man, and so the write for the future.” We might say that for Emerson, revolution was an ongoing process, a particular way of seeing the world. How and where do we see Emerson’s revolutionary processes in the world today? Papers might consider Emerson’s work in social and political reform (women’s r...

Please see the following CFP for the  Thoreau Annual Gathering to be held in Concord, Mass., this coming summer (9-13 July). It is a tight deadline, I’m afraid, so I would much appreciate your responses as soon as possible. The Alcotts: A revolutionary family   The theme of this year’s Thoreau Annual Gathering is  Thoreau’s Revolutions : an opportunity to address Thoreau’s attitude towards the American revolution, but also to explore broader interpretations of revolution in his life and writing. The Alcott family were at the heart of the revolutionary changes in Concord, Boston, and beyond, with each member of the family contributing to the rapid change of 19 th -century America. The Louisa May Alcott Society (LMAS) would therefore like to invite proposals for a panel based on the revolutionary activities of the Alcott family. Possible topics might include:   Education (Bronson’s educational reforms; Louisa’s Plumfield; May’s teaching of formerly enslaved people and ...

Join us for The Louisa May Alcott Society Annual Virtual Birthday Celebration Featuring distinguished guests Actor and Playwright, Kate Hamill & Dramaturg, Kristin Leahey, discussing their production of Little Women and Alcott December 1, 2024 430 pm PST/530 pm MST/630 pm CST/730 pm EST https://lcsc.zoom.us/j/7967888338 For more information, contact Marlowe Daly.Galeano, hmdalygaleano@lcsc.edu

CFP: American Literature Association 36th Annual Conference May 21-24, 2025, The Westin Copley Place 10 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02116 The Louisa May Alcott Society invites proposals for two panels at the upcoming ALA conference in Boston. A Rose among the Thistles: A Sesquicentennial Consideration of Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins           Published in 1875, Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins traced the shenanigans of eight cousins, two orphans, a seasoned sea captain or two, meddling aunties, domestic lessons, gender equality, pierced ears, and a little professional animosity (see “optical illusions”). There were fireworks. There were warehouses filled with treasures from the East. There were camping trips and skating lessons and charades. There were commentaries on health, fashion, and temperance. There were kittens. Possible approaches to this novel might consider its serialization history, its response to Alcott’s reviewers and critics, its il...

The Louisa May Alcott Society’s Beverly Lyon Clark Article Prize recognizes scholarly excellence in Alcott studies, and it honors the memory of Professor Beverly Lyon Clark, whose scholarship has had an enormous impact on Alcott Studies. A committee composed of three members of the Louisa May Alcott Society appointed by the Society President chooses the winning article each year. The winner will be presented with a certificate and a small cash award at the Annual American Literature Association Conference. Article prize winners are encouraged to attend the conference to receive the award, as they are able.  The award committee this year was unanimous in making its selection. This year’s winner of the Beverly Lyon Clark article prize goes to Azelina Flint for “A Marble Woman: Is the Omen Good or Ill? Louisa May Alcott’s Exposé of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Repressed Individualism in Her Domestic Horror Fiction,” which appeared in Horror Studies 14.3 (2023): 9-27.  In this brilliant ...

It is with great pleasure that the Louisa May Alcott Society announces the winners of the 2024 Sarah Elbert Travel Grants: Max Chapnick (Postdoctoral Teaching Associate in English at Boston University) to attend the Thoreau Society Gathering in July 2024 in Concord to present “Heiresses in Louisa May Alcott and Henry James”  Roberta Pardi-Oláh (graduate student at University of Szeged) for travel to the ALA Conference in Chicago in May 2024 to present “Bronson Alcott’s Pedagogy and Its Representation in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men ” Noelle Rudolf (graduate student at University of Louisiana at Lafayette) for travel to the Southwestern Popular/American Culture Association in Albuquerque in February 2024 to present “Womanhood as Wifehood: The Perpetuation and Dissension of Louisa May Alcott”  These grants, supported financially by the Society and its members and donors, are meant to encourage Alcott scholarship and to honor the career and memory of Sarah Elbert, a literary hi...

Please join the Alcott Society at the annual ALA Conference on  Friday, May 24th, 2024 , at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago. We are hosting three scholarly panels and a business meeting that day.  Democracy and Gender in Alcott and Whitman  (8:30 a.m., Salon 7) Chair: Stephanie M. Blalock, University of Iowa 1.     “Androgynous Patriotism: Reconstituting Democracy through Trans Caregiver Narratives,” Eagan S. Dean, Rutgers University - New Brunswick 2.     “Alcott and Whitman: Gender, Democracy, and … Circus,” David Carlyon, Independent Scholar 3.     “From Orchard House to Central Park: Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman on Nature, Democracy, and Gender,” Marco Sioli, University of Milan Respondent: Gregory Eiselein, Kansas State University “I Had a Stage-Struck Fit”: Alcott, the Stage, and Performance  (10:00 a.m., Salon 7) Chair: Debra Ryals, Pensacola State College 1.     “Her Truth is Marching on: Res...

The Alcott Society is offering up to three travel grants of $400 each to support students and non-tenure-track members of the Society to attend present on Alcott at an academic conference in the 2024 calendar year.  These grants, supported financially by the Alcott Society and its members and donors, are meant to encourage Alcott scholarship and to honor the career and memory of Sarah Elbert, a literary historian whose important research charted exciting new paths for Alcott scholarship. Applying is easy. Please just send the abstract for your paper, information about its acceptance and conference venue, and a one-page vita to Gregory Eiselein at eiselei@ksu.edu . We encourage students and NTT members of the Society to see these travel grants as a possible source for financial support for sharing their Alcott research with a larger audience.

The Louisa May Alcott Society is sponsoring three panels for the 35th Annual Conference of the American Literature Association, to be held May 23-26, 2024, at The Palmer House Hilton, 17 East Monroe, Chicago, IL 60603. Session 1: Democracy and Gender in Alcott and Whitman This session aims to pull together critical reflections on Walt Whitman’s and Louisa May Alcott’s thinking about democracy. We are especially interested in comparative papers that explore the role of gender in theories of democracy—for instance, the ways Whitman links democracy to “manly love” in the Calamus cluster or the ways Alcott imagines a more inclusive society in terms of “a loving league of sisters” in Work . We also welcome proposals that consider examinations of Whitman’s and Alcott ideas about democracy in relation to race, queer and trans identities, and contemporary political thought and media. This session is co-sponsored by the Whitman Studies Association and the Louisa May Alcott Society. One-page pr...

To watch a video recording of the 2023  Celebrating Louisa May Alcott event, please click here . --- The Alcott Society is delighted to announce its Annual  Celebrating Louisa May Alcott birthday celebration, scheduled this year for Nov 26: Celebrating Louisa May Alcott Sunday, November 26, 2023 3:00 p.m. Eastern, 2:00 Central, 1:00 Mountain, Noon Pacific Via Zoom at https://tinyurl.com/LouAlcott2023   This year’s event will feature a very special guest, Peyton Thomas, the Toronto-based journalist and author and host of the Jo’s Boys podcast. The event will include cutting-edge insights on Alcott as well as lively discussion, socializing, and reconnecting.  See you on the 26th!  

  Legacy Forum In honor of the 150th anniversary of Louisa May Alcott’s novel  Work  (1873) we invite short essays (2,000 to 3,000 words) that reflect on the intersections of labor, precarity, and organizing in nineteenth-century American women’s writing for an upcoming forum in  Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers. Drafted and pitched as a semi-autobiographical novel in the early years of the 1860s, but not published until after Alcott’s blockbuster success with  Little Women  (1868),  Work  follows the protagonist through a range of jobs in which she gathers a community of laboring women, examining the gendered tolls of labor across class and racial lines. In our current moment of rising labor action in education and the arts, how can  Work  and related texts help us think through labor solidarity, especially in industries associated with gendered and intellectual work, as well as caregiving, reproduction, and other invisibiliz...

The Louisa May Alcott Society’s Beverly Lyon Clark Article Prize recognizes scholarly excellence in Alcott studies, and it honors the memory of Professor Beverly Lyon Clark, whose scholarship has had an enormous impact on Alcott Studies. A committee composed of three members of the Louisa May Alcott Society appointed by the Society President chooses the winning article each year. This year’s winner was presented with a certificate and a small cash award at the 2023 American Literature Association Conference in Boston.  The committee would like to express its appreciation of all the work that was submitted for consideration. They felt that every essay offered worthwhile insights. It was difficult to narrow down our selection to just a single prize winner. While the description of the Beverly Lyon Clark Prize mentions only a winning article, they have chosen this year three essays for recognition.  The winner of the inaugural Beverly Lyon Clark Article Prize is Sandra H. Petruli...

It is with great pleasure that we announce the winners of the 2023 Sarah Elbert Travel Grants: Lauren Hehmeyer (Independent Scholar) to present “Women in Search of the Sublime: Louisa May Alcott and May Alcott Nieriker” at the Thoreau Gathering in July 2023. Jill Fuller (Independent Scholar) to present “‘A Better Plan of Child-Rearing’: An Exploration of Health and Wellness in Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins ” at the Thoreau Gathering in July 2023. These grants, supported financially by the Society and its members and donors, are meant to encourage Alcott scholarship and to honor the career and memory of Sarah Elbert, a literary historian whose important research charted exciting new paths for Alcott scholarship. With enthusiasm, the Society congratulates the winners of this amazing cohort of grant recipients, and we look forward to their exciting contributions to Alcott scholarship.