Louisa May Alcott is recognized around the world for her novel Little Women, but few know Alcott as the bold, compelling woman who grew up in the innermost circle of the Transcendentalist and antislavery movements, served as a Civil War army nurse, and led a secret literary life writing pulp fiction. Louisa May Alcott was her own best character and her life was her own best plot.
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women is a documentary film co-produced by Nancy Porter Productions, Inc. and Thirteen/WNET New York’s American Masters, and a biography of the same name written by Harriet Reisen.
To support the film, Broward County Library will present six programs from May through September 2011 that will re-introduce audiences to Louisa May Alcott’s story. Louisa May Alcott programs in libraries are sponsored by the American Library Association Public Programs Office with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The scholar for the program series is Christine Jackson, Ph.D., a professor of literature, writing, and music history in the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences Division of Humanities at NSU.
The first of the six programs will also be held at NSU:
- Through Her Eyes: The life, works, and times of Louisa May Alcott
May 7, 12 – 5 p.m. in NSU’s Alvin Sherman Library’s Second Floor Gallery
Visit with civil war re-enactors; view film clips from the documentary film, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women with commentary by NSU scholar Christine Jackson. Enjoy a presentation of a stage reading and discussion of In Common Hours, an original play about Louisa May Alcott in the years prior to the Civil War by playwright Andie Arthur, Regional Representative at Dramatist Guild of America and Executive Director of the Theatre League of South Florida. Enjoy lemonade and cookies while viewing local quilts and spend time watching the movie Little Women while seated inside a white picket fence.
For more information about additional series events, please visit click here.