I was recently in Concord, and had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Turnquist while touring the Orchard House. It’s wonderful to reflect and remember the history of this amazing place.
What a wonderful presentation ! Jan Turnquist's knowledge about , and passion for Orchard House and the Alcotts is amazing ! Orchard House is such an inspirational place to visit and a National Treasure !
How wonderful I'm 13 and uptill now "Little Women" is a really touching book. It's my favourite yet. I've read it about 10 times. This documentary was absolutely wonderful.
I understand that Thomas Fox's kitchen and dining room were added to the Orchard House. He was my great great+ grandfather, the first of the Foxes to come here in 1638. They lived in the block, so to speak, and after several generations moved away to Connecticut, and his house was moved to be added to the what was to become the Alcott house.. I was an English major, and always a fan, also, of all the Concord writers. I visited Ralph Waldo Emersons' House back around 1964, and saw the writing scratched in the window, and how it overlooked the Old North Bridge, and "The Shot Heard Around the World." I never suspected, or rather thought about, the fact that Emerson and Thoreau would visit Bronson Alcott in that house. I can't wait to come again to Concord again, and see my direct ancestor's carpentry..---Myreen Moore Nicholson
Thank you so much - This was very informative. I’m also thankful to the last audience member for her question about Mr. Alcott’s Depression. He was a complicated man and I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to have stayed married to this person and have as a father. I very much appreciate seeing both halves of this story.
I got goosebumps watching this the whole time. Little Women was my first novel that a read in completion. Fell in love with the movie (and Christian Bale) :)
In "Little Men" Louisa lived in a farm house. I don't know how Alcott could not manage Fruit Lands. To live in a farm is the most real non utopic thing you can make. Maybe because I read he thought he could not use cows to plough the land. He was rather selfish and unrealistic and a bad father who judged people for the smallest flaws. A great psychologist or philosopher but a very bad father. Slavery was not wrong in itself either. Freedom in slavery is stood by apostle Paul. You don't need physical freedom but freedom from sin. English women had house maids but what was wrong was how black women made it all: They cared for the white children not their very own mothers and they breastfed them giving opportunity to their owners to give birth to endless numbers of children, just as in England. Population growth is the great Evil, it is in the Bible. The real Devil. He had four daughters. Ana and May had children and in doing so they were unfortunate like Charlotte Brontë.
