Louisa May Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott, was a notable figure of the transcendentalist movement of the 1830s and 1840s. A friend of transcendentalist figurehead Ralph Waldo Emerson and writer of several works on the movement, Alcott purchased a Harvard, Massachusetts farm in 1843 with the intention of forming a Utopian community, Fruitlands. Members of the community lived independently, removing themselves from the economy as much as possible,...