Making a big man of Bronson Alcott Novel rescues Louisa May's father from his idealism

Chicago Sun-Times | March 27, 2005| | Copyright

MARCH

By Geraldine Brooks

Viking. $24.95.

If Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are the stars of 19th-century American idealism, Bronson Alcott is the dark matter that exercises enormous, invisible influence. Now, of course, he's "just" Louisa May's father, the absent Mr. March in her best-selling Little Women. But during his lifetime, he generated the energy that powered others' work.

Children released for 20 minutes of recess can thank Alcott for introducing that innovation, along with an astonishing list of liberal ideas that eventually transformed American classrooms.

But cynics ...

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