Two of the first books I got from my grandmother back in 1966 when I was a young lady were Little Women and Little Men by Louisa May Alcott.
I loved the books and especially loved Jo because she was so fiercely independent. I also admired Louisa May Alcott as she was an abolitionist, feminist and involved in the women's suffrage movement.
In so many ways she reminded me of my great aunt Flossie, who was born in 1882 and is shown in the picture above. She was fiercely independent, graduated from Tufts University in Medford, Ma in 1904, never married, and worked for the Massachusetts State Department of Corporations & Taxes as a tax assessor.
She, too, was a feminist and suffragette. Like my grandmother, Flossie was very intelligent but was quiet and reserved. She had a very strong constitution and was never afraid to let her views and opinions be known.
As you know, during the past few months I've been looking for illustrations in some of the free e-books that are in the public domain on the Project Gutenberg website.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I saw the Little Women free E-Book (cover shown above) on the Project Gutenberg website from 1880 that had more than 200 illustrations by Frank T. Merrill and a picture of the Home of the Little Women by Edmund H. Garrett. Even though they were all black and white I was still thrilled.
The books my grandmother had given me had 4 color illustrations for Little Women and 5 color illustrations for Little Men, which is certainly not a lot of illustrations. Plus, they currently aren't in the public domain.
Just like Louisa May Alcott "I want to do something splendid...." however, unlike Louisa my creations would involve crafts not writing books.
"I want to do something splendid....
Something heroic or wonderful.
That won't be forgotten after I'm dead....
I think I shall write books.
Louisa May Alcott
“I like good strong words that mean something…”–Louisa May Alcott
"They all drew to the fire, mother in the big chair, with Beth at her feet"
I thought you might get inspired by the books and illustrations too, so I decided to post a link to the eBook here and post the black and white illustrations with excerpts of the text in my Linda's Blog for you all to enjoy as well.
Per Project Gutenberg - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
"Go then, my little Book, and show to all
That entertain and bid thee welcome shall,
What thou dost keep close shut up in thy breast;
And wish what thou dost show them may be blest
To them for good, may make them choose to be
Pilgrims better, by far, than thee or me.
Tell them of Mercy; she is one
Who early hath her pilgrimage begun.
Yea, let young damsels learn of her to prize
The world which is to come, and so be wise;
For little tripping maids may follow God
Along the ways which saintly feet have trod."
Adapted from John Bunyan.
There are 204 black and white illustrations in the Little Women eBook which I posted to my Linda's Blog here.
Searching for old book illustrations that are in the public domain and finding the Project Gutenberg free Little Women eBook and illustrations reminded me of one of my granddaughter's visits so many years ago.
You'll have to bear with me. Don't ever ask a senior citizen what year something was or remember specific details so many years later....lol but, I think, it was the summer of 1995, 1996 or 1997.
When my granddaughter was coming for a visit for a week in the summer her mother and I talked about things she might be interested in and things we could do. Her mother said she had been taking American History during the school year and we thought it might be fun for her to actually see some of these places. So, given we weren't that far away we thought some of the historical places in Lexington & Concord might be fun for her.
Being an amateur history buff and lover of the Victorian Era (for the dresses, of course) I couldn't help but love that idea. Anything regarding the Victorian era and history was always interesting to me. Hopefully, it would be for my granddaughter as well.
In thinking about where to go we thought it would be fun to tour around Lexington & Concord, visit Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House, the Minuteman Statue, Old North Bridge, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and have lunch at the Concord Inn (which has been reported to be "haunted.")
So, that's what we did.
If I remember correctly we started with touring Louisa Mae Alcott's "Orchard House" on Lexington Road first.
According to Wikipedia.org - Louisa May Alcott ( November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888) was an American novelist, short story writer and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote novels for young adults that focused on spies and revenge.
Published in 1868, 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, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted many times to the stage, film, and television.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. All her life she was active in such reform movements as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke, two days after her father died, in Boston on March 6, 1888.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org
Illustration - Home of the Little Women by Edmund H. Garrett from the Little Women book written by Louisa May Alcott.
According to Wikipedia.org - Orchard House is a historic house museum in Concord, Massachusetts, US, opened to the public on 27 May 1912. It was the longtime home of Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) and his family, including his daughter Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), who wrote and set her novel Little Women (1868–69) there.
After walking around the parks and the center of Concord we decided it was time for lunch and ice cream. So we settled on the old Concord Inn in the center of the town.
The four daughters - Anna (the oldest), Louisa (one year younger), Elizabeth (three years younger than Louisa), and Abigail (the youngest, five years younger than Elizabeth) - lived in Orchard House from 1858-1877.
After touring through the historic rooms and grounds we made our way to the center of Concord and parked in one of the parking lots that would be closest to where we were going next which was the "Old North Bridge."
According to Wikipedia,org - The North Bridge, often colloquially called the Old North Bridge, is a historic site in Concord, Massachusetts spanning the Concord River. On April 19, 1775, the first day of the American Revolutionary War, provincial minutemen and militia companies numbering approximately 400 engaged roughly 90 British Army troops at this location. The battle was the first instance in which American forces advanced in formation on the British regulars, inflicted casualties, and routed their opponents. It was a pivotal moment in the Battles of Lexington and Concord and in American history. The significance of the historic events at the North Bridge inspired Ralph Waldo Emerson to refer to the moment as the "shot heard round the world."
There were at least eight iterations of the North Bridge constructed over four centuries. The current wooden pedestrian bridge, an approximate replica of the bridge that stood at the time of the battle, was built in 1956 and extensively restored in 2005. The bridge and the surrounding 114 acres of land make up what is known as the North Bridge unit of the Minute Man National Historical Park and is managed by the National Park Service. It is a popular tourist destination.
As we were walking across the bridge I asked her if she thought we might hear "the shot heard around the world." She just laughed. After walking across the bridge and seeing the battlefields we proceeded to The Minute Man statue.
According to Wikipedia.org - The Minute Man is an 1874 sculpture by Daniel Chester French located in Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts. It was created between 1871 and 1874 after extensive research, and originally intended to be made of stone. The medium was switched to bronze and it was cast from ten Civil War-era cannons appropriated by Congress.
The statue depicts a minuteman stepping away from his plow to join the patriot forces at the Battle of Concord. The young man has an overcoat thrown over his plow, and has a long gun in his hand. Nineteenth-century art historians noticed that the pose resembles the pose of the Apollo Belvedere. Until the late twentieth century it was assumed that the pose was transposed from the earlier statue. Based on Daniel Chester French's journals, modern art historians have shown that the Apollo Belvedere was only one of several statues that were used in the research for The Minute Man.
The statue was unveiled in 1875 for the centennial of the Battle of Concord. It received critical acclaim and continues to be praised by commentators. The statue has been a suffragette symbol, a symbol of the United States National Guard and Air National Guard, and has been used on coins such as the Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar and the Massachusetts state quarter.
We didn't see any ghosts in the Concord Inn and I kept wondering - should I be disappointed or relieved...lol
After lunch and ice cream we toured through Sleepy Hollow cemetery to see the graves of all the famous people buried there including Louisa May Alcott and her family, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau.
According to Wikipedia.org - Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is a rural cemetery located on Bedford Street near the center of Concord, Massachusetts. The cemetery is the burial site of a number of famous Concordians, including some of the United States' greatest authors and thinkers, especially on a hill known as "Authors' Ridge."
As we were walking through the cemetery I kept wondering and asking my granddaughter if she thought we would see the ghost of Ichabod Crane (IE: The Headless Horseman) .......Yikes!
We didn't, of course, but I wonder if we had who would have been running away faster - me, my granddaughter or grandpa.....lol
By the time we were finished in Concord we were tired so we decided the rest of the battlefields in Lexington could wait for another day.
We never made it back to the battlefields of Lexington! If I remember correctly, which is a big IF...lol, we spent the rest of the vacation shopping, shopping, and shopping, coloring a large dollhouse poster in our screen-house (which I still have), talking, talking and talking, eating out for breakfast, lunch and dinner, watching movies, and laughing, laughing and laughing.
We loved having her that summer. It was a wonderful visit and one of my all time favorite grandchildren visits.
As mentioned previously, two of the first books I got from my grandmother back in 1966 when I was a young lady were Little Women and Little Men by Louisa May Alcott.
As I started looking through the pages, looking at the beautiful black and white illustrations, and reading some of the chapters again I felt inspired and thought they'd make for some adorable mixed media, collage, decoupage or paper-craft creations. I also decided they would make great toile custom fabric designs. What's not to love - they're toile, they're Victorian, and they're in 4 complimentary colors: black.white,burgundy,blue, and brown.
Just like Louisa May Alcott "I want to do something splendid...." however, unlike Louisa my creations would involve crafts and custom fabric designs.
I am so happy to tell you that I added 56 new designs to my Little Women Toile Designs Collection at my Linda Walsh Originals Fabric Designs at Spoonflower.com.
I love having them there as they have so many fabrics to choose from now. At last count they had twenty-on different fabrics ranging from Petal Signature Cotton to Belgian Cotton. So many choices which allow for so many different types of home decor possibilities.
Please note that all transactions for purchasing fabric and custom products are between you (the customer) and Spoonflower.com.
My fabric designs are perfect for making all sorts of sewing and crafting projects as well as for making Victorian or shabby chic home decor, retirement party decorations, ornaments, pillows, quilts, etc.
PLEASE NOTE: Actual fabric will not contain © Linda Walsh watermarks.
I hope you enjoy my new Little Women Toile designs.
© 2004-2021 Copyright Linda Walsh Originals - Designs By Linda Walsh.
By now you definitely know that I love anything and everything revolving around crafts. Not just any crafts, but ALL crafts.
In fact, my bucket list is filled with different crafts I want to try. It will take more than a lifetime so I know I won't get to trying everything, but it won't stop me from trying...lol
My latest crafts adventure revolved around the wonderful black and white illustrations from the 1880 Little Women free E-Book on the Project Gutenberg website that had more than 200 illustrations by Frank T. Merrill and a picture of the Home of the Little Women by Edmund H. Garrett.
As I started looking through the pages, looking at the beautiful black and white illustrations, and reading some of the chapters again I felt inspired and thought they'd make for some adorable toile decorations you could make. So, I created fabric designs in 4 complimentary toile colors: black. white, burgundy, blue, and brown.
Just look at all the wonderful pillow creations you could make:
In each of the toile colors there are 14 different toile designs so you can mix and match to your heart's content.
I also decided they would make great toile custom fabric designs. What's not to love - they're toile, they're Victorian, and they would be in complementary colors. So, of course, I created some in 4 complimentary color designs: black, white, burgundy, blue, and brown.
Plus, I thought they would make adorable custom product designs in the four complimentary colors. In each of the four toile colors there are 14 different toile designs so you can mix and match to your heart's content.
I just got started creating these so there will be many more custom designs for home décor.
If you loved reading Little Women, love colored Victorian Toile Designs, love books, love to decorate your rooms with your favorite book related images, or are planning a book club gathering or a Victorian tea party that you want to make decorations for my fabric designs offer you lots of choices for home decorations.
I just started and if you know me you know this is just the beginning of the fabric designs for my new "Victorian Little Women" toile designs.
Just like Louisa May Alcott "I want to do something splendid...." however, unlike Louisa my creations involve toile custom fabric designs.
I hope you like what I've created already.
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