Louisa May Alcott

Little Men Louisa May Alcott

Alcott's novel narrates six months in the life of the students at Plumfield, a school run by German Professor Friedrich and his wife, Mrs. Josephine Bhaer (née March). The idea of the school is first suggested at the very end of Little Women, Part Two, when Jo inherits Plumfield Estate from her late Aunt March. The story was originally inspired by the death of Alcott's brother-in-law, which is revealed in one of the last chapters, when a beloved character, John Brooke, from Little Women dies. Alcott's first inspiration for bringing educational ideals into the home and the development of a home-like model into the classroom, stems from her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, "an educational reformer and prominent Transcendentalist." As a "Transcendentalist visionary," her father was considered unconventional even among his reform contemporaries. Educational theorists such as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, also provided the inspiration for Alcott's educational methodologies and "stressed the need for the school to be as homelike as possible.