Dissertation
Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches: The Commonwealth newspaper and abolitionist priorities
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Spring 2022
DOI: 10.25820/etd.006590
Abstract
My dissertation recovers the abolitionist might of the first nursing narrative of the U.S. Civil War, Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches (1863), which was published as a series of letters in Boston’s Commonwealth newspaper (1862-1896) in summer 1863 before its collection in a volume published by journalist James Redpath in fall 1863. As I uncover the abolitionist context of the original Sketches, I employ Alcott’s letters, the most enduring literary work to emerge from the pages of the Commonwealth, as an opportunity to examine the paper’s first year. Using practices of periodicals studies, I scrutinize the conditions and context in which the paper was produced in order to assess its goals, methods, and audience. I apply the same methods in my assessment of Hospital Sketches, tracing the reception of the letters in press reviews. I examine the founding of the Commonwealth in September 1862 just before the announcement of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22 and discuss its principled editors Moncure D. Conway and Franklin B. Sanborn along with its funder George Luther Stearns. Exploring their connection to John Brown’s militant abolitionism in the 1850s, I consider the paper’s aim to transform the war to preserve the union into a conflict against slavery after July 1862’s Second Confiscation Act and the Militia Act suggested the possibility. Additionally, I probe the way the Commonwealth initially defined itself as fully engaged in wartime political strategy, positioning itself against Boston’s powerhouse abolitionist newspaper and another Stearns-funded venture, The Liberator.
Treating Alcott’s contributions during the weekly’s first year as a body of work that deserves comprehensive evaluation, I discuss her January 1863 short story “M.L.” alongside her series “Letters from the Mountains” and poem “Busy Bessie, At Her Spinning Wheel,” both published in fall 1863, noting Alcott’s use of the picturesque and travel sketches in her Commonwealth publications. I then discuss Hospital Sketches as it appeared in the weekly and in its collected edition, arguing that the two chapters Alcott added for the august compilation encourage an appraisal of the text as an abolitionist travel sketch. Finally, I track the development of the Sketches during the 1860s, concluding with their illustration by Alcott’s friend Elizabeth Greene in 1869’s Hospital Sketches and Camp and Fireside Stories.
My dissertation shows Alcott exercising her literary dexterity by adapting Hospital Sketches for different audiences when she found success as a professional writer. In examining the Commonwealth, I also depict the context in which readers originally encountered her hospital drama and trace responses to it through press reviews and advertisements. By tying Hospital Sketches to the paper’s abolitionism, I not only investigate the use of literature to accelerate social reforms, but I also situate literary output as a primary strategy of the mid-war abolitionist effort. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, literature could be deployed rhetorically to imagine reconstructive possibility as the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation flourished.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches: The Commonwealth newspaper and abolitionist priorities
- Creators
- Jaclyn Crumbley Carver
- Contributors
- Kathleen Diffley (Advisor)Bluford Adams (Committee Member)Ed Folsom (Committee Member)Naomi Greyser (Committee Member)Leslie Schwalm (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- English
- Date degree season
- Spring 2022
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.006590
- Number of pages
- viii, 154 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2022 Jaclyn Crumbley Carver
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- illustrations, facsimiles
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 143-154).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
My dissertation investigates the connection between Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches (1863), the first nursing narrative of the U.S. Civil War, and mid-war abolitionist purpose. I assess the original Sketches as they appeared in Boston’s abolitionist Commonwealth newspaper (1862-1896), whose editors and funders had been associated with the militant abolitionist John Brown. This project examines the founding of the Commonwealth in September 1862 and explores the paper’s connection to militant abolitionism, discussing the role of literature in the effort to transform a war to preserve the Union into a commitment to abolishing slavery.
Turning to Alcott’s contributions during the paper’s first year, I discuss her January 1863 short story “M.L.” alongside her series “Letters from the Mountains” and poem “Busy Bessie, At Her Spinning Wheel,” both published in fall 1863. I then discuss Hospital Sketches in the weekly in summer 1863 and its fall collected edition, using Alcott’s periodical contributions to study her use of the picturesque and travel sketches. Finally, I track the development of the Sketches during the 1860s, ending with 1869's Hospital Sketches and Camp and Fireside Stories.
My dissertation shows how Alcott adapted Hospital Sketches while finding success as a professional writer. In examining the Commonwealth, I also depict the context in which readers originally encountered her hospital drama. By tying Hospital Sketches to the paper’s abolitionism, I investigate the use of literature to urge social reforms. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, literature could be deployed rhetorically to showcase reconstructive possibility.
- Academic Unit
- English
- Record Identifier
- 9984271356102771
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