Abigail May: The Alcott Who Got Away

Unfortunately for May, Louisa had established herself long before she had an opportunity to pursue her art. Her life would be a struggle to escape the title of ‘the other Alcott.’

There will always be disputes among siblings. As children grow and achieve their personal goals, jealousy can—and often does—drive a wedge between them. It can cause grievous strain on the siblings’ relationships. This seems to have been the case with the Alcott family.

With her writing, Louisa had been their source of income from a young age. By the time she reached her mid-forties, her eldest sister, Anna, was married with two sons. The youngest, May, pursued her dream of becoming an artist.

Ironically, instead of reveling in the success of Little Women, Louisa felt trapped. “So [Anna] has her wish, and is happy,” she wrote. “When shall I have mine? Ought to be contented with knowing I help both my sisters by my brains. But I’m selfish, and want to go away and rest in Europe. Never shall.”  

Portrait of Abigail Alcott, who would go on to become a talented painter

When Louisa became a celebrity following Little Women’s publication, she was overwhelmed by the ensuing fame. Childrens’ literature was rising in popularity, and her book was a bestseller among young readers. Soon the publisher was asking her to write a sequel, which she called Good Wives.

Louisa once swore to herself that she would be rich and famous; now that fame had come to her, she didn’t know what to do with it.

Her youngest sister, May, would also struggle because of this fame. Louisa’s success loomed like a dark shadow over her dream of becoming an artist. May found herself fighting for a way to make her own name for herself, apart from her sister.

This topic is the subject of a historical fiction novel I recently read called The Other Alcott. Read my review here.

Of the surviving Alcott sisters, only Anna decided early in life to marry and become a mother. Louisa and May, however, were more passionate about their art. They lived and breathed for their creative pursuits.

May was young, still in school, when Louisa began to harness her talent as a writer. She had yet to find her place in the world when Little Women was published. When she at last embarked on her journey to become a painter, Little Women had already become a roaring success.

The result was that, whenever somebody heard her surname, they asked about Louisa Alcott.

May was determined not to be written off as the other Alcott. She wanted to prove that she was talented, too— even if it meant going very far away.

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May Alcott left Concord on three occasions to study painting in Europe—in 1870, 1873, and 1877. On her first trip, she was accompanied by Louisa. It proved a bittersweet adventure; whenever their surname was discovered, attention fell on the famous author.

To be fair, Louisa did not enjoy the attention she received. It is recorded that she signed only one book for a young fan who had recognized her at the docks. She could not bear to send him off unhappy.

While Louisa spent their journey to England seasick below deck, May made plans. She was determined to enjoy her adventure abroad and make something of herself.

May set up her easel to sketch ancient towers, while children gathered behind her to watch. She even befriended the established artist Mary Cassatt, who would be a source of motivation when her new life became trying.

When May finally decided to move to London, she was determined that her past should remain where it belonged—behind her. She met art professors and studied many art forms. She even joined classes that sketched nude models, many of whom were men.

Would ‘Marmee’ have approved of that? It did not matter what her family thought. May had achieved her goal, putting an ocean between herself and her family. She would not allow Little Women to get in the way of her triumph.

She had bright hopes for the future. “When I become rich and great,” May said, “I shall found a school for indigent artists and…girls under twenty years of age. I have still thirty more years to work in and think of it, if I am spared.”

Unfortunately, she would not live those thirty years. That doesn’t mean she didn’t have the chance to help young ladies become artists. Near the end of her short life, she used her experiences as inspiration to write travel guides for those wishing to study art abroad.

It was one of the few instances when she asked for Louisa’s help. Thinking the project a good idea, Louisa used her influence to help her sister become published.

Portrait of May Alcott Nieriker by Rose Peckman

All the same, there remained a tang of bitterness on May’s behalf.

She was never happy with how she’d been pictured in the novel Little Women. While Louisa had been writing the first book, May was young enough to have been clumsy and at times awkward. Her youth must have provided some antics that would cause readers to chuckle, but as an adult, they did not flatter her.

May’s character, Amy, was often used for comic relief, or portrayed as a spoiled child with selfish tendencies. Meanwhile, Lizzie was depicted as an angel. Anna was Meg, the ‘proper lady’ with a just bit of vanity to outgrow. Jo was the likeness of Louisa: energetic and ready to break the rules.

When May was old enough to realize this, she became mortified. She resented Louisa’s choice to make her character petty, giving her queer antics, such as putting a clothespin on her nose to change its shape. This only served as motivation to distance herself further from the book.

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May’s choice to move to Europe placed a strain on their family’s bond. The three sisters had been through much together—from poverty and their sister Lizzie’s death, to a brutal war. They had developed a bond unique to their situation. 

After Lizzie’s death, the remaining Alcott girls appeared to struggle with truly ‘leaving the nest’. Though they did go on several occasions in search of work, they were never gone for long. After Anna married, she remained close to her family, seeing them almost daily. May was the first to tear herself out of Orchard House, setting up a dwelling-place of her own in London. The sisters kept in touch through letters, which were but bandages to the wounds caused by separation.

When their mother began displaying signs of illness in 1877, their relationship became chillier. Louisa wrote asking for May to return to Concord and help take care of their mother. Louisa herself was also beginning to feel the effects of age, making it a struggle to care for their mother alone. Anna could only do so much, because she had children and was a recent widow.

May did not return to Concord. Perhaps she resented that her older sister continued attempting to manage her life. Perhaps she did not realize how sick her mother was. Instead, she advised that Louisa hire someone to help her with Abigail.

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May devoted herself religiously to the study of sketching and painting, and achieved the success she had been dreaming of.

In 1877, one of her still life paintings was selected over Mary Cassatt’s work to be displayed in the Paris Salon. According to Wikipedia, the Paris Salon “was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world.”

May Alcott Nieriker, La Négresse, 1879

The following year, May triumphed when another of her paintings was displayed at the Salon. This time it was a striking portrait called La Négresse. She had established a content life in London, generating steady income by producing copies of famous paintings by artists such as Turner.

Louisa remained the primary breadwinner, consistently penning new novels to keep her mother and father housed and fed. She did this in spite of her failing health: she had begun to suffer from symptoms such as vertigo, headaches, and pain in the limbs. In her lifetime, this illness was diagnosed as neuralgia; modern studies have raised the possibility that Louisa suffered from lupus.

When their mother Abigail died in 1877, Louisa’s symptoms worsened. “Marmee” had been her rock and protector throughout her life; she found herself flailing for direction in Abigail’s absence. She couldn’t take time off to process her grief, either; she still had to care for her father. Bronson had suffered a severe stroke shortly after his wife’s death, leaving him partially paralyzed.

Though Louisa occasionally took sabbaticals from Orchard House for the sake of her sanity, she did not stop writing.

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May spent the majority of her life in Europe as a single woman. She did not marry until she was thirty-eight years old.

She fell in love with a Swiss tobacco merchant and violinist named Ernest Nieriker, who was twenty-two. They shared a whirlwind romance, living together for a few months before getting married on March 22, 1878. They moved to Paris, where Ernest had been offered work, and enjoyed a pleasant year of romance in the City of Light.

In spite of their differences, Louisa sent May a letter of congratulations and money as a wedding gift.

May Alcott Nieriker, Floral Panel, c1879; it is on display in Orchard House

Soon after the wedding, May became pregnant. Because of her age, it appears she had a presentiment that something could go wrong:

“If I die when baby comes,” she wrote her family, “don’t mourn for I have had as much happiness in this short time as many [have had] in twenty years.” She prepared trunks containing treasures for Louisa and Anna and for Ernst’s sisters, brought her diary up to date, even chose her burial place.

—Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, Harriet Reisen

May had enough foresight to arrange these sobering matters with her husband. She and Ernest agreed that, in the case tragedy should strike, their child would be sent to Concord for Louisa to raise.

On November 8, 1879, May gave birth to a healthy baby girl whom she named Louisa, or “Lulu,” for her sister. The child was healthy; May, however, fell ill after the ordeal, probably from childbed fever.

In her lucid moments, she reminded Ernest of his promise regarding their daughter’s upbringing. The young man did not put up an argument; perhaps it had dawned on him that he could not raise a daughter alone. Perhaps he realized that he was still young, and did not wish to be anchored by a child.

The Nierikers’ Parisian fairy-tale ended after Lulu’s birth, for May died seven weeks later.

This would be a devastating blow to the Alcott family, especially her sisters. In an attempt to soften it, Ernest contacted Ralph Waldo Emerson. His hope was that, by learning the news from a family friend, it might be easier to bear:

On the last day of 1879, Anna was in Boston and Bronson was haunting the post office when one of the servants summoned Louisa: Mr. Emerson was waiting for her in the parlor. “I found him looking at May’s portrait, pale & tearful with the paper in his hand. ‘My child, I wish I could prepare you, but alas, alas!’ [T]here his voice failed and he gave me the telegram.”

— Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, Harriet Reisen

In accordance with May’s wishes, Ernest’s sister, Sophie, boarded a ship with baby Lulu, bound for America.

Though Louisa placed a gravestone bearing May’s name at Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery with their family, the artist’s remains are buried in Paris. She had desired to live a life of glamor in Europe, and there she rests.

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May Alcott was not home to witness her mother’s illness and death. Her absence was also notable during Louisa’s season of declining health. The two were not able to say a proper farewell, but May left Louisa a beautiful gift.

I can’t imagine that busy Louisa had a chance to seriously contemplate marriage. She claimed to be uninterested in that sort of life, but was it just a shield? I wonder if she might have longed for something different as the years slipped by and she grew increasingly depressed.

In her younger years, she didn’t have time for proper courtship. Practically from childhood, she was the Alcott family’s breadwinner. How much of a social life could she have enjoyed, when she had to devote every spare moment to writing, for her family’s sake?

If Louisa contemplated marriage at some point, she didn’t pursue the idea. Passages in her journal suggest that she had resigned herself to spinsterhood. May’s gift of baby Lulu gave her the chance to experience motherhood in her final years. She loved and cared for the child until her own death in 1888. 

Though Lulu wouldn’t remember much about her Aunt Louie (Anna, the sister who survived longest, was more of a mother to her), she would be forever grateful for the love Louisa gave her.

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After Louisa died, Ernest returned for his daughter—and the inheritance that Louisa left for Lulu.

He’d gone to Brazil hoping to make a fortune but failed miserably. One must wonder if he only married May because of who her sister was, and the wealth attached to the surname Alcott.

Ernest took an unhappy Lulu with him to Switzerland, where she spent her childhood missing her family. He attempted a number of times to forbid her from marrying, knowing he would lose her money once she left.

Desperate to be out of his clutches, Lulu returned to Concord with her mother’s family. She found happiness in the place where she’d known real love—a place where the Alcott name remains immortal.

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