Orchard House
Encyclopedia
Orchard House is an historic house museum in Concord
, Massachusetts
. It was the longtime home of Amos Bronson Alcott
and family, including his daughter Louisa May Alcott
who wrote and set her beloved novel Little Women
there.
, a utopia
n agrarian
commune
in nearby Harvard
. The family returned in 1845 and purchased a house named "Hillside", but left again in 1852, selling to Nathaniel Hawthorne
who renamed it The Wayside
.
The Alcotts returned to Concord once again in 1857 and bought another property in May 1858. At the time of purchase the site included two early eighteenth century houses on a 12 acre (49,000m2) apple orchard. Consequently the Alcotts named it Orchard House. Bronson moved the smaller house to adjoin the rear of the main house, making a single larger structure. While the home was being renovated, the family rented rooms next door at The Wayside while the Hawthornes were still in England.
The Orchard House is on the historical road to Lexington
, is adjacent to The Wayside, and less than half a mile from Bush
the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson
, where Henry David Thoreau
and the Alcotts were frequent visitors.
, his wife Abigail May
, and their daughters Anna
, Louisa
, and May
. Elizabeth
, the model for Beth March, had died in March 1858 just weeks before the family moved in.
The Alcotts were vegetarians
and harvested fruits and vegetables from the gardens and orchard on the property. Conversations about abolitionism
, women's suffrage
and social reform were often held around the dining room table. The family performed theatricals
using the dining room as their stage while guests watched from the adjoining parlor.
The parlor was a formal room with arched niches built by Bronson to display busts
of his favorite philosophers, Socrates
and Plato
. On May 23, 1860, Anna married to John Bridge Pratt in this room.
May, the youngest, was a talented artist
. Her bedroom contains sketches of angelic
, mythological and biblical figures on the woodwork and doors. In Louisa's room May painted a panel
of calla lilies
as well as an owl on the fireplace. Copies of Turner
seascape
s by May hung in her parent's bedroom.
In 1868, Louisa May wrote her classic novel Little Women
in her room on a special folding "shelf" desk built by her father. Set within the house its characters are based on members of her family, with the plot loosely based on the family's earlier years, and events that transpired at The Wayside. Also written in the house were Bronson's Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865; published 1882), Tablets (1868), Concord Days (1872), and Table Talk (1877).
On the grounds, to the west of the house, is a structure designed and built by Bronson originally known as "The Hillside Chapel", and later as "The Concord School of Philosophy
". Operating from 1879 to 1888 the school was one of the first, and one of the most successful, adult education
centers in the country.
In 1877, Louisa May Alcott bought a home on Main Street
for her sister Anna. After Abby May's death that year, Louisa and Bronson moved into the home as well. Orchard House was sold in 1884.
The exterior looks much as it did in the Alcotts' day. Care has been taken to keep extensive structural preservation work invisible. All of the furnishings are original to the mid-nineteenth century, about 75% belonged to the family, and the rooms look very much as they did when the Alcotts were in residence.
The dining room contains family china, portraits of the family members, and paintings by May along with period furnishings. The parlor is decorated with period wallpaper
and a patterned reproduction carpet while family portraits and watercolors by May adorn the walls. Abigail May's bread board, mortar and pestle
, tin spice chest and wooden bowls are displayed on the hutch
table in the kitchen. Other original kitchen features include a laundry drying rack designed by Bronson, and a soapstone
sink bought by Louisa. The study is furnished with Bronson's library table, chair and desk. The parent's bedroom contains many of Abigail May's possessions, including photographs, furniture, and hand made quilts.
The Orchard House has continued the tradition of The Concord School of Philosophy by hosting "The Summer Conversational Series" since 1977, and has recently added a "Teacher Institute" component. The Hillside Chapel is also used for youth programs, poetry readings, historical reenactment
s, and other special events.
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. It was the longtime home of Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a...
and family, including his daughter Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...
who wrote and set her beloved novel Little Women
Little Women
Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869...
there.
History
The Alcotts had first moved to Concord in 1840, although they left in 1843 to start FruitlandsFruitlands (transcendental center)
Fruitlands was a Utopian agrarian commune established in Harvard, Massachusetts by Amos Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane in the 1840s, based on Transcendentalist principles...
, a utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n agrarian
Agrarian society
An agrarian society is a society that depends on agriculture as its primary means for support and sustenance. The society acknowledges other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses the importance of agriculture and farming, and was the most common form of socio-economic oganization for...
commune
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
in nearby Harvard
Harvard, Massachusetts
Harvard is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. A farming community settled in 1658 and incorporated in 1732, it has been home to several non-traditional communities, such as Harvard Shaker Village and the utopian Transcendentalist center Fruitlands...
. The family returned in 1845 and purchased a house named "Hillside", but left again in 1852, selling to Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
who renamed it The Wayside
The Wayside
The Wayside is a historic house in Concord, Massachusetts. The earliest part of the home may date to 1717. Later, it successively became the home of the young Louisa May Alcott and her family, author Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family, and children's literature writer Margaret Sidney...
.
The Alcotts returned to Concord once again in 1857 and bought another property in May 1858. At the time of purchase the site included two early eighteenth century houses on a 12 acre (49,000m2) apple orchard. Consequently the Alcotts named it Orchard House. Bronson moved the smaller house to adjoin the rear of the main house, making a single larger structure. While the home was being renovated, the family rented rooms next door at The Wayside while the Hawthornes were still in England.
The Orchard House is on the historical road to Lexington
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...
, is adjacent to The Wayside, and less than half a mile from Bush
Ralph Waldo Emerson House
The Ralph Waldo Emerson House is a house museum located at 28 Cambridge Turnpike, Concord, Massachusetts, and a National Historic Landmark for its associations with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. The museum is open mid-April to mid-October; an admission fee is charged.-History:The house...
the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
, where Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
and the Alcotts were frequent visitors.
The Alcotts in residence
The Orchard House was the Alcott family's most permanent home, with the family living there from 1858 to 1877. During this period the Alcott family included BronsonAmos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a...
, his wife Abigail May
Abby May
Abigail "Abby" Alcott was the wife of Transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott and mother of four daughters, including Civil War novelist Louisa May Alcott...
, and their daughters Anna
Anna Alcott Pratt
Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt was the elder sister of American novelist Louisa May Alcott. She was the basis for the character Margaret "Meg" of Little Women , her sister's classic, semi-autobiographical novel...
, Louisa
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...
, and May
Abigail May Alcott Nieriker
May Alcott Nieriker was an American artist and the youngest sister of Louisa May Alcott. She was the basis for the character Amy in her sister's semi-autobiographical novel Little Women...
. Elizabeth
Elizabeth Sewall Alcott
Elizabeth Sewall "Lizzie" Alcott is the real-life model for the fictional character Beth March in Little Women, a novel written by her sister Louisa May Alcott...
, the model for Beth March, had died in March 1858 just weeks before the family moved in.
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
and harvested fruits and vegetables from the gardens and orchard on the property. Conversations about abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
and social reform were often held around the dining room table. The family performed theatricals
Theatricals
Theatricals is a book of two plays by Henry James published in 1894. The plays, Tenants and Disengaged, had failed to be produced, so James put them out in book form with a rueful preface about his inability to get the plays onto the stage....
using the dining room as their stage while guests watched from the adjoining parlor.
The parlor was a formal room with arched niches built by Bronson to display busts
Bust (sculpture)
A bust is a sculpted or cast representation of the upper part of the human figure, depicting a person's head and neck, as well as a variable portion of the chest and shoulders. The piece is normally supported by a plinth. These forms recreate the likeness of an individual...
of his favorite philosophers, Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
and Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
. On May 23, 1860, Anna married to John Bridge Pratt in this room.
May, the youngest, was a talented artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
. Her bedroom contains sketches of angelic
Angelic
The term Angelic may refer to:* Angel, a supernatural being* Angelic, a UK dance band featuring Darren Tate, Judge Jules and Jules's wife, Amanda O'Riordan.* Angelic acid, an organic compound* Angelic de Grimoard, brother of Pope Urban V...
, mythological and biblical figures on the woodwork and doors. In Louisa's room May painted a panel
Panel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...
of calla lilies
Zantedeschia aethiopica
Zantedeschia aethiopica ; syn. Calla aethiopica L., Richardia africana Kunth, Richardia aethiopica Spreng., Colocasia aethiopica Spreng...
as well as an owl on the fireplace. Copies of Turner
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
seascape
Seascape
A seascape is a photograph, painting, or other work of art which depicts the sea, in other words an example of marine art. By a backwards development, the word has also come to mean the view of the sea itself, and be applied in planning contexts to geographical locations possessing a good view of...
s by May hung in her parent's bedroom.
In 1868, Louisa May wrote her classic novel Little Women
Little Women
Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869...
in her room on a special folding "shelf" desk built by her father. Set within the house its characters are based on members of her family, with the plot loosely based on the family's earlier years, and events that transpired at The Wayside. Also written in the house were Bronson's Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865; published 1882), Tablets (1868), Concord Days (1872), and Table Talk (1877).
On the grounds, to the west of the house, is a structure designed and built by Bronson originally known as "The Hillside Chapel", and later as "The Concord School of Philosophy
Concord School of Philosophy
The Concord School of Philosophy was a lyceum-like series of summer lectures and discussions of philosophy in Concord, Massachusetts from 1879 to 1888.-History:...
". Operating from 1879 to 1888 the school was one of the first, and one of the most successful, adult education
Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
centers in the country.
In 1877, Louisa May Alcott bought a home on Main Street
Thoreau-Alcott House
The Thoreau-Alcott House is an historic house at 255 Main Street in Concord, Massachusetts that was home to the writers Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott at different times.-History:...
for her sister Anna. After Abby May's death that year, Louisa and Bronson moved into the home as well. Orchard House was sold in 1884.
The Orchard House today
Orchard House is open for public tours daily, except for major holidays and between January 1 and 15. An admission fee is charged.The exterior looks much as it did in the Alcotts' day. Care has been taken to keep extensive structural preservation work invisible. All of the furnishings are original to the mid-nineteenth century, about 75% belonged to the family, and the rooms look very much as they did when the Alcotts were in residence.
Wallpaper
Wallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. It is usually sold in rolls and is put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
and a patterned reproduction carpet while family portraits and watercolors by May adorn the walls. Abigail May's bread board, mortar and pestle
Mortar and pestle
A mortar and pestle is a tool used to crush, grind, and mix solid substances . The pestle is a heavy bat-shaped object, the end of which is used for crushing and grinding. The mortar is a bowl, typically made of hard wood, ceramic or stone...
, tin spice chest and wooden bowls are displayed on the hutch
Hutch (furniture)
A hutch is an American English word for a type of furniture.Now usually used to describe a set of shelves or cabinets placed on top of a lower unit with a counter and either drawers or cabinets. Hutches are often seen in the form of desks, dining room or kitchen furniture...
table in the kitchen. Other original kitchen features include a laundry drying rack designed by Bronson, and a soapstone
Soapstone
Soapstone is a metamorphic rock, a talc-schist. It is largely composed of the mineral talc and is thus rich in magnesium. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occurs in the areas where tectonic plates are subducted, changing rocks by heat and pressure, with influx...
sink bought by Louisa. The study is furnished with Bronson's library table, chair and desk. The parent's bedroom contains many of Abigail May's possessions, including photographs, furniture, and hand made quilts.
The Orchard House has continued the tradition of The Concord School of Philosophy by hosting "The Summer Conversational Series" since 1977, and has recently added a "Teacher Institute" component. The Hillside Chapel is also used for youth programs, poetry readings, historical reenactment
Historical reenactment
Historical reenactment is an educational activity in which participants attempt torecreate some aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as the reenactment of Pickett's Charge at the Great Reunion of 1913, or as broad as an entire...
s, and other special events.