Alcott’s Old Fashioned Girl 

Jessie Willcox Smith created this illustration for Louisa May Alcott’s novel, positioning it within turn of the century America, a time of evolving gender roles and class consciousness. Smith’s work taps into the nostalgia for simpler times, while also subtly challenging the conventional portrayals of women. Smith, like many women illustrators of the time, found success depicting domestic scenes and children, genres considered ‘safe’ and ‘feminine’. However, she also subtly infused her work with a sense of independence and self-reliance which reflected her own life as a ‘New Woman’. In Alcott’s Old Fashioned Girl, Smith portrays a scene of intergenerational exchange, with children gathered around an older woman, perhaps a grandmother. The scene evokes a sense of warmth, tradition, and continuity, but it also hints at the changing dynamics within families and society. By focusing on the emotional connections between individuals, Smith invites us to reflect on our own relationships and the ways in which we negotiate tradition and modernity. The image is soft and loving, but also quietly revolutionary in its portrayal of women’s inner lives.