Little Women and A Rose for John Brown: The Politics of Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott is best known for her beloved children’s novel, Little Women, which marks its 150th anniversary this year. But there is more to this popular authoress than sweet childhood tales. Years before charming the world with the adventures of Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy, Louisa was deeply invested in the antislavery movement, and yearning “for a battle like a warhorse when he smells powder.”

Following the John Brown raid, Louisa crafted what was arguably the most positive, romantic image of  the man hanged for treason and murder -- the man whom she called “Saint John the Just” -- made by any Northern writer.

Her poem, “With a Rose, That Bloomed on the Day of John Brown’s Martyrdom,” exemplifies her beatification of the abolitionist, evoking some of the most distinctly religious language ever to be applied to Brown.

  

The “rose” of the poem would have been recognized by Louisa’s audience as a symbol of Christian martyrdom, an honor which. She goes on to compare Brown to a century plant - a tall plant capable of reaching up to twenty-five feet with a central spike that can pierce deeply. It is both towering and fierce image to apply to her hero.

The poem continues with proclamations of purity, power, and holy sacrifice. 

In the long silence of the night,

Nature’s benignant power

Woke aspirations for the light

Within the folded flower.

Its presence and the gracious day

Made summer in the room.

But woman’s eyes shed tender dew

On the little rose in bloom.

Then blossomed forth a grander flower,

In the wilderness of wrong.

Untouched by Slavery’s bitter frost,

A soul devout and strong.

God-watched, that century plant uprose,

Far shining through the gloom.

Filling a nation with the breath

Of a noble life in bloom.

A life so powerful in its truth,

A nature so complete;

It conquered ruler, judge and priest,

And held them at its feet.

Death seemed proud to take a soul

So beautifully given,

And the gallows only proved to him

A stepping-stone to heaven.

Each cheerful word, each valiant act,

So simple, so sublime,

Spoke to us through the reverent hush

Which sanctified that time.

That moment when the brave old man

Went so serenely forth

With footsteps whose unfaltering tread

Re-echoed through the North.

The sword he wielded for the right

Turns to a victor’s palm;

His memory sounds forever more,

A spirit-stirring psalm.

No breath of shame can touch his shield,

Nor ages dim its shine;

Living, he made life beautiful,

— Dying, made death divine.

No monument of quarried stone,

No eloquence of speech

Can grave the lessons on the land

His martyrdom will teach.

No eulogy like his own words,

With hero-spirit rife,

"I truly serve the cause I love,

By yielding up my life."

How did the author of Little Women ever create such an ode to John Brown?

Louisa was perhaps destined to be an abolitionist. She was born in 1832 to a family who, at the time, were considered extremists for their anti-slavery opinions - even in the North. The Alcotts were also Transcendentalists - a group of progressive thinkers that included the likes of Henry David Thoreau (“Walden”), Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Nature”), and Margaret Fuller (“Woman in the 19th Century”).
 
Bronson Alcott, Louisa’s father, was a philosopher and educator with a lofty, mystical style that, sadly, was not financially rewarding. His schools and other business enterprises often failed. The Alcotts never had much money, and they lived in several homes around New England - including a short-lived utopian commune with philosophical dietary restrictions resembling an extreme form of veganism. 

Whatever we might imagine a traditional antebellum childhood to be, Louisa May Alcott’s was not that. Sketch of Bronson Alcott in his study by Louisa’s sister, May.

It is not enough simply to say that Louisa’s family were abolitionists. The Alcotts were a house fully dedicated to resisting what they saw as unjust laws. This meant boycotting common products made by slave labor, voicing socially unpopular opinions, and risking their own liberty to engage in blatantly illegal behavior. The Alcotts proudly hosted runaway slaves en route to Canada.

Louisa wrote about an incident that occurred when she was just seven years old. Hearing a strange sound in the oven, she opened the door, and was surprised to see a man hiding inside. Her mother explained that he had escaped from slavery, and was hiding from authorities until he could find safe passage to Canada.

Louisa was taught from a very early age that some laws were worth breaking.

Louisa’s father went so far as to start an anti-slavery society with editor William Lloyd Garrison, whose impassioned abolitionist publication, “The Liberator,” resulted in threat of impoverishment, violence, and sometimes, very nearly death.

Mr. Alcott was also a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, which sought to prevent the return of escaped slaves to South. The Committee coordinated with Underground Railroad activists, attempted to provide legal aid to fugitive slaves, and, if all else failed, vowed to forcibly free those facing return to enslavement. 

On at least one occasion, Mr. Alcott was involved in a violent attempt to free a fugitive held at the Boston courthouse. When he arrived to find members of the Committee retreating after the death of a guard, the old philosopher calmly walked into the melee, inquiring simply, “Why are we not within?”
Perhaps John Brown’s call for action was not so foreign to Louisa, after all.

After Brown’s execution, the Alcott family continued to express their support for his cause. At Orchard House - the house where Louisa wrote her most famous novel - the family sponsored a reception for Brown’s widow, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Brown’s daughters boarded with the Alcotts after the raid as well - reportedly, in the very midst of Louisa’s novel-writing. For many, many years, John Brown’s portrait took the prominent place on the family’s mantle.

Louisa May Alcott’s words about John Brown may be shocking to some: How can the creator of Little Women’s sweet passages ever have aligned herself with the militant abolitionist? But Louisa never was the average 19th century girl. While John Brown remains a controversial figure, we hope you’ve enjoyed learning about the complexity of one of America’s favorite authors, and her connection to one of Harpers Ferry’s most famous characters.
 
As the saying goes, “well-behaved women rarely make history.”

 

Did you know? 

The Bookshop offers a selection of titles by Louisa May Alcott, including Hospital Sketches, a memoir of her time as a Union nurse during the Civil War - an experience which nearly cost the author her life.

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Catherine Oliver