"The Fashionable World Displayed": Alcott and Social Power

Abstract

Fashion, though in strange way, represents all manly virtues. It is virtue gone to seed: it is kind of posthumous honor. It does not often caress great, but children of great: it is hall of Past. --Emerson Self-presentation was source of both pleasure and anxiety for nineteenth-century American women. Louisa May Alcott often felt awkward about how she appeared, especially as she became an increasingly public figure. She knew that she needed to project an image that was bright and comely, but she also knew that, after years of ill health and over-work, such an image would be deceptive. At same time, she was reluctant to risk portrait that would disappoint children.(1) When she and her publisher, Thomas Niles, were searching for suitable images for promotional purposes, Alcott expressed dissatisfaction with all photographs of herself. She eventually sent Niles one (describing it as a sample of pensive invalid) that had been taken at Conly's in Boston in early 1880s (see fig. 1). It is grand and formal portrait of writer, seated with an open volume in hand. She is attired in high Victorian style, in very draped and elaborate afternoon dress. A professionally made garment, it is mainly of silk, with contrasting velvet basque, bustle with tasselled bow, layers of flounces, and an apron-front with frills. effect is very much one of opulence and expense, although dress does not fit very well. And for all that it proclaims its costliness, dress is not actually very stylish. Alcott had chosen to present herself to her public in bustle at precisely wrong moment. By this time bustle had passed height of fashion, and there is no sign of narrower, straighter line that would define mode of 1880s. How appropriate that woman who made career extolling virtues of home sewing should look uncomfortable, should get it slightly wrong, when she tried to conform to image of Boston grande dame of letters.(2) [Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Alcott had to sell herself to her audience, in that she had to achieve an authoritative and attractive presence. One obvious way of doing this was to avail herself of dress codes of day. But as her diffidence would suggest, she embodied contradictions that did not make such projections comfortable or accurate. In her life and work, she managed several important cultural transformations, notably from rural to metropolitan, from making to buying. She grew up with ideals of genteel modesty, but lived with emergence of conspicuous consumption. Even as she acquired social authority of fame and wealth, she was deeply troubled by what Henry James would call the air of unmitigated publicity.(3) In her most important writing for girls, she used idiom of fashion to express concern over loss of an older sense of intrinsic moral worth. This essay investigates her treatment of power in relation to female self-presentation. I begin with cultural influence of her background, before turning more specifically to her fiction, and to her management of her own professional and social identity. theme throughout is that of class definition, as defined and regulated through women's fashions. In her journal for September 1, 1843, ten-year-old Louisa May Alcott recorded that she had risen at five, taken bath--I love cold water--and spent rest of day in lessons, chores, and exercise. She also mentions being read story called The Judicious Father, which she then summarizes: How rich girl told poor girl not to look over fence at flowers, and was cross to her because she was unhappy. father heard her do it, and made girls change clothes. poor one was glad to do it, and he told her to keep them. But rich one was very sad; for she had to wear old ones week, and after that she was good to shabby girls. …