Louisa as Inspiration: Conversation with Biographer John Matteson

Sit down with Jill and Jamie as they reflect and dissect the week they spent together in Concord. They talk about visits to Orchard House, Fruitlands, Walden Pond, and more. Jill discusses her visit to the Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library, where she saw Louisa's handwritten manuscript pages from Little Women. Jamie talks about her presentation for the Thoreau Society Gathering- the ecofeminist gothic setting of "Pauline's Passion and Punishment." It's an all-about-Alcott final bonus episode of Season 2! 

On July 13, 2022, Let Genius Burn was invited to speak at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts, the site where the Alcott family lived--and nearly died--for 9 months in 1843.This episode is the recording of our talk.The Fruitlands Effect: How the Utopian Experiment Influenced Louisa May Alcott’s Life and WorkThe Alcott family spent less than a year living at Fruitlands, but the experience significantly altered their values and family dynamic. Louisa May Alcott would not have been the same woman without the lessons she learned and hardship she faced during her family’s utopian experiment when she was on the brink of adolescence. We’ll look at the influence of Fruitlands on Louisa May Alcott’s life and writings, and the ways the ideas of the Fruitlands experiment to continued to permeate her work and ultimately changed her forever.

This episode features Jill's travelogue from her week in Concord, Massachusetts. Listen as we travel to see Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House for the first time and take a tour of Fruitlands with Trustees Engagement Manager Catherine Shortliffe. We also spend time with other Louisa May Alcott scholars and enthusiasts, sharing stories. In particular, we taste pickled limes, a treat from the 19th century, which is featured in Little Women. Learn about the process to making them and our reactions in this bonus episode of Let Genius Burn.

In our final full episode of Season 8, Jill and Jamie recap the highlights of season two and reflect on what the conversations with Alcott scholars have taught them. Then they both share what they've been reading and researching lately. Jamie, who has been teaching second grade this year, dives into the differences between teaching Little Women and teaching about the Alcotts' lives to young children. She explores picture books and young reader chapter books that feature Louisa.Jill visited a reenactment of a Civil War hospital at the Milton House museum and discusses how it affected her reading of Hospital Sketches with her son. She also talks about her deep research into queer interpretations of Little Women and of Louisa's characters, as well as Louisa's exploration of gender in scholarly writings.We'll be back in the fall after Jill's visit to Massachusetts!

John Matteson's biography, Eden's Outcasts: the Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, has become a foundational work in Alcott scholarship. It brings together the best of Alcott studies to show us an empathetic portrait of the Alcotts who feel as real and alive as ever in its pages. In our conversation with John Matteson, we cover Louisa's time in Washington as a nurse during the Civil War and why those three weeks were so influential in the rest of her life. We also discuss John's writing process and how he chose the five figures featured in his newest book, A Worse Place Than Hell. We compare and contrast Louisa May Alcott and Margaret Fuller, as well as hearing about John's most interesting research discoveries.Beyond these concrete topics, John offers us a vision of the Alcotts that is connected to our present-day world and where our future is headed. His conversation focuses on why we study history and why we write. It will resonate with anyone who looks for meaning in life, who sees connections and wonders where they come from.John Matteson is Distinguished Professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the City University of New York. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his biography Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. He is also the author of The Lives of Margaret Fuller and the editor of The Annotated Little Women. His most recent book, A Worse Place Than Hell, was chosen by Civil War Monitor as one of the outstanding Civil War books of 2021.

If you’re anything like us, you’ve watched the Little Women film adaptations looking for the props and pieces that really bring the book to life–the vivid renderings of your own thoughtfully-imagined ephemera. Barbara Heller worked on movie set designs for feature films for many years, bringing all kinds of stories to life through location scouting and other roles. Then, she was rereading Pride and Prejudice when she had a sudden and visceral desire to hold characters' letters to each other in her own hands. She set out to find the right artists, paper, and materials to make that dream come true.After the success of her edition of Pride and Prejudice, Barbara turned her focus to Little Women, another novel that uses letters within the story. Again, she worked with artists to bring these pieces of writing into removable replicas that are tucked into the book itself. The reader feels the thrill of unfolding a letter as if they are from real, dear friends.In this episode, Barbara discusses the research, process, and design behind these familiar letters, now turned into beloved works of art. Barbara Heller's career in film and television encompasses finding furnishings and props for many shows including The Americans and When They See Us; location managing films for Francis Coppola, Nancy Meyers, and Barbet Schroeder; and directing award-winning short films that have played at festivals around the world (Cannes, Berlin, Sundance). To satisfy her curiosity, she reported on why hotels fold the end of the toilet paper into a point for NPR. She graduated from Brown University with a degree in English Literature and lives with her son in New York City. See the book and purchase your own copy at https://www.barbaraheller.org/little-women or at your local bookstore.

Most Alcott scholars cannot imagine what it would be like to do research without the Selected Letters and Selected Journals of Louisa May Alcott, these two seminal works that make Alcott's work so accessible.Dr. Daniel Shealy, however, knows exactly what it's like--because he was part of the team that edited these two publications, bringing together hundreds of letters from around the country and compiling them into the legible, useful edition that Alcott scholars depend on for their work. This is the work that has enabled other professors, writers, and filmmakers to shift their perception of Louisa May Alcott, from the famed children's writer to a more serious, scholarly study.Daniel Shealy shares his experiences working with Joel Myerson, Madeleine Stern, and Leona Rostenberg, giving us a glimpse into the early days of Alcott scholarship. We discuss Louisa's changing legacy over the years, and Daniel even gives his opinion on Little Women films.Daniel Shealy is Professor of English at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, where he teaches American literature.  He has published thirteen books on Louisa May Alcott, including co-editing Alcott’s Selected Letters and Journals.   He also edited Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters’ Letters from Europe, 1870-71, which recounts May Alcott’s first journey to Europe.  His most recent book is Little Women at 150.

Meet Lauren Stern: a researcher interested in social and material history. She has been a staff member at Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House since 2006, where she has worked to bring New England history alive through summer camps, museum tours, and living history programs. In this episode, Lauren discusses her experiences at Orchard House as well as her research on the life of May Alcott Nieriker. As an expert in historical fashion, Lauren also discusses the fashion trends during the decades of Louisa May Alcott's adulthood, from Victorian sleeve trends and bustles, to corsets and the Alcott's involvement in dress reform.Lauren is also a dance historian and performer with the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, where she gets to wear all those ball dresses she makes. She blogs about her research and experiments at plaidpetticoats.blogspot.com, and makes short-form dance history videos on tiktok (@plaidpetticoats). She has also made her own pickled limes.In addition to Lauren's personal website, she recommends the following resources: https://twistedpreservation.com/ https://tessa.lapl.org/cdm/search/collection/fashionhttps://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/24/archival_objects/284321

Maud: Books, Babes, and Barbiturates is a podcast about the life of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables. The co-creators, Stef Drummon and Jen MacLennan, tell Maud's story with empathy, intelligence, and depth. This week, they join us on Let Genius Burn to talk about our two favorite literary women. Gender and sexuality, fame, and family influence and history- we talk about it all. We discuss the respective scholarly approaches to each author, and how their legacies have changed over time.  We noticed so many similarities between Louisa and Maud: both women valued their art but struggled with the fame it brought them. They had complex family relationships that influenced their writing. They were artists and geniuses, but sometimes were relegated to "children's lit."But we also noticed great divergences that made us want to dive deeper. Louisa's nuclear family shaped her entire existence, but Maud was an orphan. Maud became a mother; Louisa never really did. How did this influence their writings? Their characters?Learn more about Maud the Pod on Instagram: instagram.com/maudthepod and at maudthepod.com.For more information about L.M. Montgomery:The L.M.Montgomery Literary Society & their annual periodical The Shining Scroll https://lmmontgomeryliterarysociety.weebly.comL.M.Montgomery Online: https://lmmonline.org

In this episode, we are talking with Leslie Schomp, who served as an artist-in-residence at Fruitlands in 2021. Leslie drew inspiration from Louisa’s diaries to create textile pieces that embodied and expressed Louisa May Alcott’s time there. Her samplers capture the dichotomy of this place: the distance between the restrictive ideals of the community and the vibrant, free spirit of young Louisa.Leslie Schomp’s open heart captured another layer of Louisa May Alcott that has not yet been fully explored on Let Genius Burn: the tender pre-adolescent she was at Fruitlands, the fear she felt at becoming herself, and how she tried to tame it. These works express the full range of Louisa’s emotional self.We discuss what it means to be a young girl growing up with ambitions, how we relate to Louisa's particular struggles, and how to capture visual elements while remaining in the ideals of an extreme utopian community.Leslie received her MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and her BFA from Florida State University.  She is a senior lecturer who primarily teaches drawing in the Visual Arts department at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester (Wooster), Massachusetts, where she has taught since 2000.  Her work consists of drawings and sculptures created with textiles. Each piece is an investigation into how she sees herself as ”part of” instead of “apart from” nature. To support Fruitlands Museum, visit thetrustees.orgYou can view images of Leslie's artwork on her website: leslieschomp.com