Louisa May Alcott

American author

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June 1, 2026 •History

Louisa May Alcott (born November 29, 1832, Germantown, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died March 6, 1888, Boston, Massachusetts) was an American author known for her children’s books, especially the classic Little Women (1868–69). A daughter of the transcendentalist Bronson Alcott, Louisa spent most of her life in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts, where she grew up in the company of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, and Henry David Thoreau. Her education was largely under the direction of her father,...