Author: annaleoncio

With the recent adaptation of her novel Little Women, Louisa May Alcott’s work has grown in popularity during the past few months. However, this popularity is not novel as Alcott’s work has had a consistent readership for many years, as is evidenced by this digital surrogate of her poem “Thoreau’s Flute”. Title page of 1950 … Continue reading Between Public and Private: The Publications of Louisa May Alcott’s poem “Thoreau’s Flute”

Many early examples of American women’s writings found within the archive demonstrate how societal organization placed women’s voices into the sphere of domesticity. What women wrote about and the types of writing that they produced demonstrate this: personal letters, recipe books, instruction for household chores, diaries, and other very distinctly “domestic” types of writing. However, … Continue reading Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s Diary as “Political Warfare”

Zitkála-šá advocated for the preservation of Native American culture for most of her life. As a young girl, she was persuaded to leave the Yankton reservation to receive an education at a white boarding school. While there, white missionaries tried to force Zitkála-šá to abandon her Dakota culture and adopt their white American culture. While … Continue reading From Print to Eye: The Cover Art of Zitkála-šá’s American Indian Stories