Throughout the history of literature many authors have based their writings upon the places, people, and events that have shaped their lives. This was no different for Louisa May Alcott when it came to writing her most famous work, Little Women. It is a story of four young girls, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March, and how they survive growing up in New England in a time of both philosophical and social reform. Alcott reflects upon her own life and many of the experiences of growing up during the nineteenth-century with three of her own sisters are found within the March family.
             Louisa May Alcott was born in 1832 to Abigail and Bronson Alcott. She was the second of four girls. Growing up, there were many struggles and hard times as the Alcott's went from being a family of high status to a family living in poverty. In his despair, Bronson Alcott responded by immersing himself in the transcendental philosophy of the nineteenth century. He forced his family into the natural ways of living. Louisa was always a challenge to her father's theological worldview.
             Within her father's theological world view, the passionate little girl's behavior--like that of Bronson's sometimes short tempered wife--could be explained away as a complete lapse from angel into devil...Louisa's bad temper was a standing threat to Bronson's ideal of a loving harmonious family..."(Halttunen).
             Despite her father's ways, Louisa's mother, Abigail, took control of the family. It was Abigail and the two oldest who took care of the house and kept the family going. Throughout her life Alcott engaged in sewing and teaching, but it never fulfilled her. She began writing seriously while still living at home and gradually began earning money from her written work. The more she wrote the more money she made, and it soon became her soul purpose for writing. Before Little Women, Alcott went through a period of writing that was dark and Gothic and brought her lit...