Forgotten Alcott

This collection is the first academic study of the captivating life and career of expatriate artist, writer, and activist, May Alcott Nieriker. Nieriker is known as the sister of Louisa May Alcott and model for "Amy March" in Alcott’s Little Women. As this book reveals, she was much more than "Amy"—she had a more significant impact on the Concord community than her sister and later became part of the creative expat community in Europe. There, she imbued her painting with the abolitionist activism she was exposed to in childhood and pursued an ideal of artistic genius that opposed her sister’s vision of self-sacrifice. Embarking on a career that took her across London, Paris, and Rome, Nieriker won the acclaim of John Ruskin and forged a network of expatriate female painters who changed the face of nineteenth-century art, creating opportunities for women that lasted well into the twentieth century. A "Renaissance woman," Nieriker was a travel writer, teacher, and curator. She is recovered here as a transdisciplinary subject who stands between disciplines, networks, and ideologies—stiving to recognize the dignity of others. Contributors include foundational Alcott scholar Daniel Shealy and Pulitzer Prize winner John Matteson, as well as Curators, Jan Turnquist (Orchard House) and Amanda Burdan (Brandywine River Museum of Art). In this book, readers will become acquainted with a dynamic feminist thinker who transforms our understanding of the place of women artists in the wider cultural and intellectual life of nineteenth-century Britain, France, and the United States.

Azelina Flint is a Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Creative Writing at Lancaster University. Her first book, The Matrilineal Heritage of Louisa May Alcott and Christina Rossetti, was supported by the Fulbright American Studies Fellowship and recovers the influence of Alcott’s and Rossetti’s mothers and sisters on their work. It appears in Routledge’s Studies in Nineteenth Century Literature (2020). Azelina has published articles on the Alcotts in Comparative American Studies and Horror Studies (forthcoming). She organized the first international conference on May Alcott Nieriker at Université Paris Diderot in 2018. Lauren Hehmeyer is retired from Texarkana College. She has published in the fields of library science, education, and literature and received multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She presented at the Thoreau Bicentennial Celebration in Concord, Massachusetts, and at the "Recovering May Alcott Nieriker" conference in Paris. Her paper on the genius of Louisa May Alcott and May Alcott Nieriker appears in American Studies Journal. Hehmeyer is a popular speaker on both the Alcotts and Thoreau.