I've spent the last week or so reading and thinking about the shifting notions of childhood in nineteenth-century America. Jacqueline S. Reinier's From Virtue to Character proved a help as did the classics on childhood as a historical category, i.e. Philippe Aries' Centuries of Childhood. I'm realizing how expansive this field is and just how little I know. Having to reconcile constantly my need to get something on paper and my debilitating anxiety about not knowing, about having huge gaps where I need huge stores of information, feels mostly overwhelming. I suspect a healthy dose of ego would help, some sort of transcendental sense of rightness, but alas, I'm stuck with my brain and my nerves.

I spent the afternoon at Orchard House, Alcott's home in Concord, MA. It has been preserved as a museum, and out back still sits the old, stained barn that opened each summer for the Concord School of Philosophy, Bronson Alcott's final rendition of teaching. I heard Sarah Elbert (Hunger for Home) on LMA's engagement with race and imperialism in her sensation stories. I also heard John Matteson read from his not-yet-released (August 2007) book Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. Before this afternoon, I had no idea that this study was about to come out, nor did I know it was even in the works. Panic set in when I walked in a bit late and heard him arguing that Bronson never took advantage of LMA's popularity to jump start his career after 1871. I was frozen for a moment. Isn't this in fact the exact opposite of what I've been arguing? Normally, I would have quickly sat down with a racing heart, took furious notes, and cried on the way home, terrified that as usual, I'd entered the game in the 9th inning. But something strange happened this afternoon: I thought he was sort of wrong. I thought he was misreading Bronson and ignoring the newspaper accounts that I had been reading in the Houghton Library in March. Perhaps this may sound anti-climatic to you competent academics out there, but this was really the first time when I believed that my reading was more accurate than another's, especially someone whose book on the topic is soon to come out (see above). With that said, I've been sitting with the book (I got an advanced copy) for an hour, and so far it's quite good (and he does scoop me on Jesus and Alcott) and I'll probably be panicked by 9 pm. But... I spoke to Matteson afterwards and pressed him on some of my concerns, and he back-pedalled pretty quickly. Hmmm.

I'm headed back to Orchard House tomorrow to hear Lisa Stepanski on LMA and "mother teaching." Rest assured, I'll feel duly incompetent as of noon tomorrow. Also, I'll try to remember my camera (perhaps I can nab a shot of varsity Alcott scholars in barn!).