Professor Butter Beard’s “Little Women”
“It’s simple: Jo wants to be a writer. Her entire family assumes she will become a writer. And we understand, by virtue of the book we hold in our hands, that she has become a writer. As a girl, that made my own highly improbable professional dreams seem possible. “Little Women” is the first sign I ever had that I might someday become who I am today.” – Anna Quindlen, author and Pulitzer Prize winner
“Christopher Columbus!” It’s Tech Week for the Stone Church Players’ production of “Little Women, the Musical.” I was approached by one of our actors, Willie, who in perfect Laurie fashion, and while beaming his contagious Laurie grin, questioned: “Will there be tech treats?” Of course, there will be! I create something specific for each SCP production. But more on that later….. In the meantime, let me introduce you to the lesser-known sister and illustrator of the first edition of Louisa May Alcott’s masterpiece.
First published in 1868, the semi-autobiographical novel “Little Women” is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters: Anna Alcott Pratt (Meg), Elizabeth Sewall Alcott (Beth) and Abigail May Alcott Nieriker (Amy). The novel was an immediate commercial and critical success, and the entranced readers clamored for more March adventures, convincing Alcott to write two sequels to her popular work, both also featuring the March sisters: “Little Men” (1871) and “Jo's Boys” (1886).
Abigail May Alcott was born on July 26th, 1840, into the eccentric Alcott family. The March patriarch, Bronson Alcott, has been described as a hopelessly improvident romantic, passionate about social justice and education. Her mother, Abigail, kept the family financially afloat (in her husband’s absence) while publicly advocating women’s rights. The youngest of the four sisters, Abigail May was named after her mother, and her family lovingly nicknamed her Abba and then Abby. Later, in her mid-20’s, Abby asked to be called May, and when writing “Little Women,” Louisa recreated May into an anagram - Amy.
The family struggled to survive until Louisa had her blockbuster hit with “Little Women.” May early on exhibited a talent for drawing, painting and artistic experimentation, but was continually challenged by her family’s poverty and by being a young woman in such a male-oriented art society. Yet, through it all, she managed to piece together an artistic education. She eventually studied art with three prominent Boston artists: William Rimmer, William Morris Hunt and David Claypoole Johnston. Early in 1868, Louisa requested May be granted permission to illustrate her soon to be published manuscript. Even though the writing was immediately praised, critics panned May’s work as amateurish and anatomically incorrect. May is quoted as saying, “Of course they did – they never permitted me access to a live body!”
The success of “Little Women,” allowed May and Louisa to accept the welcome invitation to experience Europe as travel companions to a wealthy family friend. Louisa later wrote that even though May developed the confidence to venture out in foreign cities alone, she always secretly carried a dagger hidden in her skirt. May returned to the United States, established a free art center in Concord and wrote a travel guide “Studying Art Abroad, and How to Do It Cheaply” (released by her sister’s publisher) encouraging women of modest means like herself to travel to Europe and pursue an art career.
“Art is so over-talked and over-written at the present time,” she wrote in her first chapter, “but none of these writers report the actual cost of living, instruction, or rent of studio abroad; or how one in search of such can most easily and economically obtain them, in order to realize the desire of one’s heart.”
In 1877, the Paris Salon selected a still life painting she submitted over the work of the Impressionist Mary Cassatt. The next year, at the age of 38, she married Ernest Nieriker, a 22-year-old Swiss tobacco merchant, and they moved to a Paris suburb. Very soon after, she became pregnant, and unfortunately died at the age of 39 while giving birth to her daughter Lulu. May had earlier stipulated that in the event of her death, she desired her child to be raised by her sister Louisa in Concord. She wrote, “I keenly feel that Louisa would love the child as if it were her own,” and believed that providing her spinster sister with a child was the greatest gift she could think to give in gratitude for all the love and support Louisa had given her.
In creating a “treat” specific for this production, I pondered over all the written attributes of each sister, including reading about the creation of their individual gardens at Orchard House. For Jo, I have included toasted wild oats. For Meg, the aroma of orange blossoms provided by an abundance of fresh orange zest and a teaspoon of orange flower water. A sprig of rosemary from my own garden evokes the passion of Beth. And for Amy, playful and intoxicating butterscotch. May they all combine into something “Astonishing.”
My Little Women Cookies
Makes four dozen cookies
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
Zest of one large orange
1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves
8 ounces unsalted butter (2 sticks), room temperature
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 tsp orange flower water (or ½ tsp orange extract)
2 eggs
1 cup rolled oats, toasted and cooled
1 cup butterscotch morsels
1) Toast the oats in a non-stick pan over medium heat until golden and aromatic. Set aside to cool.
2) Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg.
3) In a standing mixer, combine the sugar, orange zest and chopped rosemary until fully combined. Add the butter and cream together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and orange flower water and then the eggs, one at a time.
4) On low, add in the dry mix. Keeping the mixer on low, fold in the cooled oats and butterscotch chips. Set the dough aside for fifteen minutes to relax.
5) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line four baking sheets with parchment paper.
6) Use a rounded teaspoonful of the dough for each cookie, spacing twelve cookies per pan. Do not flatten the cookies – they will flatten themselves in the oven.
7) Bake the cookies, two trays at a time for 13-14 minutes, reversing the pans once top to bottom and front to back during baking.
8) Let the baked cookies firm up slightly on the pans before removing them to cool completely on wire racks.
Abigail May Alcott Nieriker and one of her illustrations for “Little Women”
