Professor presents lecture on Alcott sisters
A lifelong interest in two famous sisters inspired Texarkana College english and history Professor Lauren Hehmeyer to deliver a lecture on the two siblings Thursday evening.
Hehmeyer’s focus on American novelist Louisa May Alcott and her younger sister, American artist Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, inspired her deliver a presentation titled “The Alcotts,” which explored the influence both sisters had on literature and art.
Hehmeyer opened her presentation by asking her audience questions regarding four key ingredients at work in both sisters’ lives involving sibling relations, parental relations, economic circumstance and recognition of genius. From there Hehmeyer described the course each sister took in life and how those ingredients played their role.
“The two sisters started out with a tight-knit family, their dad, Bronson, was an educator but he made two mistakes—he honestly answered a question from a student about where babies come from and he was an abolitionist,” she said.
Hehmeyer went on to say that Bronson Alcott’s honesty about procreation and his stand on slavery put an abrupt end to his education career, causing his family extensive economic hardship.
“Their mother became long suffering and decided to be social worker since her husband lost his living,” she said
Hehmeyer went on to describe how the two sisters would let the rest of the world know that they alive, thanks to the positive influence of neighbors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau.
Even though the prospect of women showing creative power and genius seemed unthinkable and even evil in the 19th century, Hehmeyer said that Louisa eventually decided that someone in the family had to make a living, so she started writing.
“The Alcott family were all abolitionists, so when the civil war came along , Louisa became angry that she wasn’t born as a man and could fight in the war—so she became a nurse,” Hehmeyer said. “This lead her to write about both hardship and adventure in a book about girls called ‘Little Women,’ and that book became a smashing success.”
However, Hehmeyer added that while success improved the family’s finances, Louisa Alcott preferred her privacy and didn’t want to be known as a genius for writing the book.
“She felt uncomfortable being called a genius and she knew that getting married would end her career so she decided on continuing her independent living and rejected marriage.
Louisa would nevertheless go to help her younger sister May Alcott succeed in becoming an artist and not only take up the cause of abolition but also women’s suffrage. From that point on May Alcott paints a portrait of liberty in form of a black woman.
“By this time the Civil War is won and new history in America of freedom begins,” she said.