#PledgeYourLove to Orchard House - Back our New Documentary on Kickstarter!

Help us create the first-ever documentary about Orchard House!

Guess what? Orchard House is making a movie - the first documentary about the 350 year history of the house - and we want YOU to be involved in creating the film. Today we've launched a fundraising campaign on the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter.com to raise the $150,000 needed for production!  For those who may not be familiar, Kickstarter is dedicated to fundraising for creative projects just like this. Funding is all-or-nothing, which means we need to raise every penny of our goal by October 22, 2014 through pledges to our online campaign.  Click here and take just 10 minutes out of your day to visit our page, watch the beautiful 4 minute video, make a donation (called a pledge), and share the campaign with friends and family. Pledges  start at just $1.00 and donations of all amounts are welcome and encouraged. There are even some great rewards for our backers. #PledgeYourLove to Orchard House and become part of our legacy!

Louisa May Alcott & Uta Pippig Team Up for the Annual Orchard House Walk/Run!

At first glance, these two women may not appear to have much in common.  Louisa May Alcott (left) is best known for writing children's stories in the nineteenth century, while Uta Pippig (right) is an international marathon winner and founder of Take the Magic Step (c), a foundation for advocating healthy and active lifestyles.

Don't be mistaken! Though separated by centuries, these strong, independent women are much more alike than they seem.

Did you know, for example, that Louisa was an avid runner?  She once wrote,

"Active exercise was my delight, from the time when, as a child of six, I drove my hoop around the Common without stopping, to the days when I did my twenty miles in five hours and went to a party in the evening."

While growing up in Concord, Louisa described many instances of  brisk morning runs in her journal, where she wrote,

"I always thought I must have been a deer or a horse in some former state, because it was such a joy to run."

In the spirit of advocating this lesser known aspect of Louisa's life and work, Orchard House Executive Director Jan Turnquist began the 10k/5k Run and 5k Walk for Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House in 2006.  Over the past eight years, this fundraiser has proven to be one of the most anticipated events on the Orchard House calendar, and with 19th century games and living history actors, there are festivities for all ages.



Executive Director Jan Turnquist as Louisa May Alcott, participating in the race in her hoop skirt!

Louisa May Alcott took five hours to walk to Boston, and Uta Pippig is also familiar with the twenty miles it takes to get into the city-- 26.2 miles, in fact--and she became the first woman to win the Boston Marathon three consecutive times, from 1994 to 1996.

Pippig has served as Honorary Chair of the Walk/Run since the beginning, and Orchard House is so pleased and honored to announce that she will be in attendance this year.  After all, a love of running is not the only thing these two women have in common; with a spirit reminiscent of Louisa's interest in reforms and advocacy, Uta Pippig is an inspirational woman striving to help people make healthier habits and lead healthier lives.



Uta Pippig congratulates the male champion of the 2011 Walk/Run

The 9th Annual Walk/Run will take place on September 14th at 12 noon at the Alcott School in Concord, Massachusetts. 

Bringing together the force of these two women will undoubtedly make this year's Walk/Run an unforgettable event!  Register online now at our active.com site or visit the Orchard House website for more information.

It's the Artists' Life for May

Today we celebrate May Alcott's birthday. May was the lively youngest Alcott sister, born July 26 1840.  May was a natural born artist and began to sketch and draw at an early age. Bronson & Abigail even allowed her to decorate the walls of Orchard House with whimsical sketches to support her creative spirit. Visitors today can still see some of her original work, drawn right on the paint! 

At the age of 19, May was admitted to and began studies at the Museum School at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. There she really began to hone her artistic talent and explore work as a painter. As a student of William Rimmer and William Morris Hunt, May became an early teacher to American master sculptor, Daniel Chester French. As a 17 year old student, he was captivated by May, and we could think of no better way to honor her birthday than to share some of his remembrances of her written for the Prelude to May Alcott, A Memoir by Caroline Ticknor.

"One sparkling summer's morning in 1868 a young woman rode into our yard in Concord, Massachusetts, wearing the long skirt and close fitting bodice which, with plumed hat, made up the picturesque riding habit of that day, setting off her tall and extraordinarily handsome figure to advantage. This was May Alcott. Her face was not beautiful, according to classical standards, but the liveliness of expression and the intelligence and gayety that shone from it led one to overlook any want of harmony in her features...Full of the joy of living, her enthusiasm was easily stirred in almost any worth-while direction...May was fond of her home and a quite ideal relationship existed between her and her father and mother and sisters. She, more than the others, contributed to the lively and gay element in the household. One felt that here indeed, "people were of more importance than things."

Miss Alcott was devoted to her art and gave to it the best of her enthusiastic nature. She had talent and training, and her works, particularly her water colors, have a very distinct charm. Her sketches are still eagerly sought, both for their intrinsic value and for their association with the name of Alcott."

Concord College for Adult Education: From Dream to Reality

A. Bronson Alcott on the steps of the School of Philosophy

The Concord School of Philosophy began as a dream. After Amos Bronson Alcott began his mercurial career as a schoolteacher in the 1820s, during which he tried out his radical educational ideas in the classroom in a series of schools that he ran in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and in Boston, Massachusetts, he abandoned the idea of running his own schools in favor of holding “conversations” for groups of adults, often traveling as far as the Midwest to find his audiences. Alcott’s dream of one day opening an adult educational center, a “college” that would be open to the public, was an idea he entertained as early as 1842 . On his trip to England to meet the founders of the Alcott School, named in honor of Alcott’s educational ideas, he collected hundreds of volumes of books on literature and philosophy, bringing them back to Massachusetts for the library of his future ideal classroom.


The dream became a reality in 1879, when the very first session of the Concord School of Philosophy “Conversational Series” was held in the Study of Orchard House. There were so many attendees that they spilled out the doors; and afterwards a benevolent participant from New York, Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, donated $1,000 to build a structure that would house the large numbers of future participants.


1899 Rendering of the School of Philosophy Building

During the following years the School was run each summer with great success. Many women and men, coming from as far away as the Midwestern states, would attend, boarding in town during the weeks of the sessions. Speakers who graced the stage included such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Peabody, Julia Ward Howe, William Torrey Harris, and Franklin Sanborn.
Franklin Sanborn, eminent Concord educator, thus described the conversations that followed each series lecture: “What is sought in the discussions at Concord is not an absolute unity of opinion, but a general agreement in the manner of viewing philosophic truth and applying it to the problems of life.”

The Hillside Chapel, as Alcott named it, built in 1880, still stands today on the Orchard House grounds. Bronson Alcott’s legacy lives on in the Summer Conversational Series and Teacher Institute, held annually each July at Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House.


The School of Philosophy as it stands today.

This year’s Summer Conversational Series and Teacher Institute, “Navigating the Vortex: Creative Genius in the Time of the Alcotts,” runs Sunday, July 13 through Thursday, July 17, and is open to the public. Massachusetts teachers may receive Professional Development Points for attending. Speakers include Pulitzer Prize winners Megan Marshall and John Matteson, screenwriter Olivia Milch, and others.




Pre-registration and prepayment are suggested. For a full schedule and additional information CLICK HERE, or call 978-369-4118 x106.

Lis Adams, Director of Education