Grant to Focus on Louisa May Alcott's Life and Work

Illinois State University's Milner Library has received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to feature author Louisa May Alcott's life and work.  Co-grant partners include the Bloomington Public Library, Peoria Public Library and Normal Public Library.

The lead scholar for the grant is Roberta Seelinger Trites, a professor of English at Illinois State, author of Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel and member of the board of directors of the Louisa May Alcott Society and contributor to the Louisa May Alcott Encyclopedia.

Alcott is globally recognized for her novel Little Women, but few are aware that she grew up in the inner circle of the Transcendentalist and antislavery movements, served as a Civil War army nurse and led a secret literary life writing pulp fiction.  Her life is featured in a documentary film titled Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, which is also the title of a biography written by Harriet Reisen.

"The grant provides Central Illinois with the opportunity to celebrate Alcott's work as a Civil War nurse, abolitionist, suffragette, author of gothic thrillers, humorist and children's author," Trites said.

A number of programs during the fall semester will reintroduce audiences to Alcott's story.  The library programs are sponsored by the American Library Association Public Programs Office, with the support of the NEH grant. The programs will explore Alcott's life and her remarkable body of work. Through her writing, Alcott expressed her views on many of the era's ideas for social reform, including women's rights, racial integration and education.  She amassed her fortune with the success of her novels for young adult readers, proving that a woman could make a living as a self-trained and professional writer.

Milner Library was one of 30 libraries nationally to receive the grant, which is part of NEH's We the People initiative that encourages and strengthens the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture through the support of projects that explore significant events and themes in the nation's history.