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Biographical Sketch: She was the model for the matron character "Marmee" in the book Little Women, written by her second daughter, Louisa May Alcott. Outspoken and passionate for the rights of others, she was one of the first female social workers in Boston, Massachusetts. She later met and married Amos Bronson Alcott on May 23, 1830, and the union produced four daughters. She was the mainstay in an often-stormy household due to her visionary husband's failure to support his family. Her strong and kind nature provided a stable and nurturing home for her children, and her sayings and teaching were included in her daughter's popular book.

Biographical Sketch: He was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a vegetarian, almost vegan diet. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights. Born in Connecticut in 1799, Alcott had only minimal formal schooling before attempting a career as a traveling salesman. Worried about how the itinerant life might have a negative impact on his soul, he turned to teaching. His innovative methods, however, were controversial, and he rarely stayed in one place very long. His most well-known teaching position was at the Temple School in Boston. His experience there was turned into two books: Records of a School and Conversations with Children on the Gospels. Alcott became friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson and became a major figure in transcendentalism. His writings on behalf of that movement, however, were heavily criticized for being incoherent. Based on his ideas for human perfection, Alcott founded Fruitlands, a transcendentalist experiment in community living. The project was short-lived and failed after seven months. Alcott continued to struggle financially for most of his life. Nevertheless, he continued focusing on educational projects and opened a new school at the end of his life in 1879. He died in 1888. Alcott married Abby May in 1830 and they eventually had four surviving children, all daughters. Their second was Louisa May, who fictionalized her experience with the family in her novel Little Women in 1868.

Biographical Sketch from Find-a-Grave: She was the first of the four Alcott daughters. Beautiful and ladylike, she is the model for "Meg" in Little Women, penned by her sister Louisa. Early in life, Anna became involved with familial theatrics with Louisa. Together, they formed the Concord Dramatic Union. During one of the productions, The Loan of a Lover, Anna fell in love with fellow actor John Bridge Pratt. They married on her parents' anniversary, May 23, 1860. Unfortunately, John died and left Anna to care for their two sons, Frederic and John. Anna lived a quiet, domestic life, but sometimes aided Louisa in editing her stories. In 1877, Anna purchased the Thoreau House with the aid of Louisa and cared for her ailing father. Anna spent the last years of her life quietly caring for those she loved.

Biographical Sketch: Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Good Wives, Little Men and Jo's Boys. During the Civil War she served for about six weeks as a nurse at a Union military hospital in Washington, D.C.; her experience there resulted in several somewhat fictionalized magazine articles called Hospital Sketches that were later turned into a book by the same name. Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A. M. Barnard. With her pen name Louisa wrote novels for young adults. Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novel was very well received and is still a popular children's novel today, and been made into a movie at least three times in English. Alcott was an ardent abolitionist and worked to advance women's rights.

Biographical Sketch: Known as "Lizzie" to her family, she was the model for the character "Beth" in the book Little Women, penned by her sister, Louisa May Alcott. Described as quiet, gentle, and someone who took pleasure in helping her family and friends, in 1856 she contracted scarlet fever from a poor German family that her mother was caring for, but revived. However, the fever permanently weakened her, and she passed away from a "wasting illness" two years later.

Biographical Sketch from WikiTree: Like "Amy March" in Little Women, May was a blue-eyed golden girl who possessed from childhood an intense love of beauty and all things artistic and elegant. "She is so graceful and pretty and loves beauty so much, it is hard for her to be poor and wear other people’s ugly things," wrote Louisa to Anna in 1854. "I hope I shall live to see the dear child in silk and lace with plenty of pictures and ‘bottles of cream,’ Europe, and all the things she longs for." May had a talent for drawing and painting. She studied art in Boston where her most influential teachers were Dr. William Rimmer and William Morris Hunt. She dreamed of going to Europe, and it was Louisa’s success with Little Women in 1868 that provided that opportunity. She took three trips there and studied art in London, Paris, and Rome. May and Louisa, although unlike each other in many respects, shared an artistic temperament which expressed itself in ambition, willfulness, and a certain competitive spirit. When the Paris Salon accepted her still life painting in 1877, May wrote, "Who would have imagined such good fortune and so strong proof that Lu does not monopolize the Alcott talent. Ha! Ha!, sister, this is the first feather plucked from your cap!" In 1878, she married a young Swiss businessman and musician, Ernest Nieriker. The couple settled in Meudon, a suburb of Paris, leading what May called "an ideal life -- painting, music, and love ..." In November 1879, May gave birth to a daughter, Louisa May, nicknamed "Lulu." May tragically died six weeks after the baby was born, but had earlier requested that her baby be sent to Louisa in Concord, feeling that her sister would love the child as she would have done herself.