Object Details
- Artist
- George Kendall Warren Studio, active 1834 - 1884
- Sitter
- Louisa May Alcott, 29 Nov 1832 - 6 Mar 1888
- Exhibition Label
- Born Germantown, Pennsylvania
- A November 1862 journal entry by Louisa May Alcott reads, “Thirty years old. Decided to go to Washington, D.C., as nurse if I could find a place. Help needed, and I love nursing, and must let out my pent-up energy in some new way.” Having grown up in a Boston family of transcendentalists and abolitionists, she served as a nurse at the Union Hotel Hospital for six weeks in 1863. “Though often homesick . . . and worn out,” she found “real pleasure in comforting, tending, and cheering these poor souls.” Alcott read and wrote letters for soldiers, although she found reading those with news of the death of loved ones “the saddest and hardest duty a nurse has to do.”
- She contracted typhoid fever in January 1863 and returned to Boston. Her book Hospital Sketches (1863) is based on her nursing experience. Five years later, she published her best-known work, Little Women (1868).
- Nacida en Germantown, Pensilvania
- En noviembre de 1862, Louisa May Alcott anotó lo siguiente en su diario: “Treinta años. Decidida a irme de enfermera a Washington D.C., si encuentro donde vivir. Necesitan ayuda, y me gusta brindar cuidados, y tengo que dar escape de algún modo a la energía que llevo reprimida”. Criada en una familia de trascendentalistas y abolicionistas de Boston, Alcott trabajó seis semanas en el Union Hospital en 1863. “Aunque a menudo nostálgica […] y exhausta”, sentía “verdadero placer al confortar, atender y animar a estas pobres almas”. Alcott leía cartas a los soldados y escribía las que ellos le dictaban, si bien leerles noticias de la muerte de seres queridos era para ella “el deber más triste y difícil de una enfermera”.
- Alcott contrajo fiebre tifoidea en enero de 1863 y regresó a Boston. Su libro Escenas de hospital (1863) se basa en sus experiencias. Cinco años después publicó su obra más conocida, Mujercitas (1868).
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- c. 1872
- Object number
- S/NPG.77.139
- Restrictions & Rights
- CC0
- Type
- Photograph
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Dimensions
- Image: 9.6 x 5.8 cm (3 3/4 x 2 5/16")
- See more items in
- National Portrait Gallery Collection
- Exhibition
- Out of Many: Portraits from 1600 to 1900
- On View
- NPG, East Gallery 111
- National Portrait Gallery
- Topic
- Costume\Jewelry\Ring
- Printed Material\Papers
- Louisa May Alcott: Female
- Louisa May Alcott: Arts and Culture\Journalism and Media\Magazine editor
- Louisa May Alcott: Arts and Culture\Literature\Writer\Novelist
- Portrait
- Record ID
- npg_S_NPG.77.139
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm4500baed0-4b5c-4e7e-8445-a0a0a1a25d3e
