Bibliography

Dahlstrand, Frederick C. Amos Bronson Alcott, an Intellectual Biography. Rutherford [N.J.] :  Londn: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press ; Associated University Presses, 1982.


Dahlstrand examines the ideas of American philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott, who along with Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne, was one of the main figures in the transcendentalist movement of the 19th century. With a critical eye, Dahlstrand details the historical significance of Bronson's idealism, philosophy on education, and reasoning for a plant-based diet.


Matteson, John. Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007.


Matteson paints a picture of Louisa May Alcott, the American novelist best known for writing the book Little Women. Matteson chronicles the philosophical clash in the often tumultuous relationship between Louisa May and her father Bronson. The friction between famous father and daughter, notably due to Louisa May’s independent personality and Bronson’s strict child-rearing views, is highlighted.


Sanborn, F. B. Bronson Alcott at Alcott House, England, and Fruitlands, New England (1842-1844). Cedar Rapids, Ia: The Torch press, 1908.


Sanborn explores many facets of Bronson Alcott's life before and after the closing of the agrarian commune known as Fruitlands. Fruit was to be the staple of daily food on this utopian farm, where over a dozen people helped plant multiple acres of fruit and vegetable trees. Fruitlands failed to become a true eden, and a rash of problems from inhabitant unrest to severe weather, the Utopian community closed the winter after it opened.


Sears, Clara Endicott. Bronson Alcott’s Fruitlands. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1915.


Sears peels back the layers on the people who ascended to Alcott's Harvard, Massachusetts commune in the 1840s. Real life accounts from the eyewitnesses, community members, and transcendentalists who lived at Fruitlands are uncovered and brought to the surface. Transcendental Wild Oats, a first hand account of the Alcott family’s experiment of community living, is delivered by Louisa May Alcott


Alcott, Amos Bronson. “The Healthian.”, no. 1 v. 1 v. London: J. Cleave, 1842.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hx3udv;view=thumb;seq=1.


The Healthian was a news pamphlet written by students at Alcott House in London, England. In No. 1, Vol. 1, the Editor describes the content as a Prospectus, and invites any reader who agrees with the philosophies printed in The Healthian, to commune further. The section Principles and Plan of this Publication delivers a theory that the body is an instrument of the spirit, and in order to remain the greatest version one’s self, the individual must remain healthy. In No. 5 of the volume, the Editor’s answer to “Barbara’s Letter” titled Flesh Diet is the first known appearance of the word vegetarian in print.


Matteson, John. “Little Woman.”, no. 6 v. 30. National Endowment for the Humanities. December, 2009.

http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2009/novemberdecember/feature/little-woman.


Matteson goes into great detail about the intriguing life of Louisa May Alcott. He illustrates Louisa May’s life as a writer, her days of learning alongside Emerson and Thoreau, and her final days. Matteson also reveals what it was like for Louisa May to have Amos Bronson Alcott as a father. Louisa May, the daughter with a temper who went through violent mood swings, and Bronson, the stern, unyielding, Transcendentalist philosopher. John Matterson won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for his book Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.

 

American Memory, Library of Congress. “Today in History: November 29.” Today in History. November, 2010. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/nov29.html.


The Library of Congress dedicated the November 29 entry, for 2010, to the Alcott family. Located in the American Memory Home, the “Today in History” was selected largely due to Amos Bronson Alcott being born on November 29. The chronological story of the Alcotts uncovers letters written by Louisa May Alcott (who, incidentally, wrote of November being a disagreeable month in her classic novel Little Women), suffrage and women’s rights issues which Louisa May fought for alongside her social worker mother Abigail Alcott, and the lifetime of writings by New England Transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott.