revolutions. the beginning of the american revolution just through its windows down the hill and then later the second intellectual revolution of thought. it is such a charming house with discoveries. i love working here and every week finding new graffiti or come look at this thing that we found, a house that keeps on giving in a way i have never seen in my career. it's a house for things to be discovered and i think for inspiration as well. it was built around 1760, by william emerson and his family, one of the first occupants of the house. william emerson is the grandfather of the writer we all know and love. when he lived at this house, he and his wife, phoebe, had several children and the last just before he went to be part of the revolution and only knew her a short time period. while he was here he was one of the town leaders and he not only read in the church, he would have gatherings as they talked about the american revolution. he was the philosopher. he had a book collection that started with the first ministers who lived at this house and continued to the 20th century when the later residents were collecting the books of writers who wrote here through their lifetimes. really, this is the heart and soul of this house. all the people that touched and used these books and so many have inscriptions. on the second floor we have them in bookshelves that have handles on the sides that could easily be removed in case of a fire and they could take out these wonderful books. we have many here and we just finished a conservation project and take the books from 1750 and rehouse them. we're really proud of the collection here and continue to look at it. many are inscribed, such as this one inscribed from emerson and his friend, sarah ripley. they were related. sarah ripley was an amazing woman that lived here. a scholar and mother. amazing antidotes where she would be rocking a cradle with one foot and reading a book in script with the other. for emerson, their friendship was an important thing. they share the in tell electoral interest in writing and reading and learning. correction intellectual interest -- and they have given the books back and forth to individuals and it's a collection that tells us about the people who touched and used these books through history. when we're standing in this study you have to look at this view. this is about the landscape as well. from the windows of this room during the revolutionary period the emerson family first looked out and saw the commotion at the bridge in "the shot heard around the world". they're standing at the window and being in this house, this is your home and witnessing the start of what would be a major event for our nation. >> emerson stayed at this house about five years, and he and his wife lived here a few years. he eventually went away and got ill, trying to come back in 1776, and died. his legacy to the house was really instrumental to the found work of the intellectuals and the house, the philosophy of the house. he only lived here for a short time period. william emerson's wife, phoebe emerson, found herself with small children living at there and really a young widow. when she looked to what was next in her life, she encountered reverend ripley, also a reverend and they married. it was the second generation that lived at the house. the interesting antidote, when ezra came to the town and the pari parisheners had to vote whether they wanted him to become minister. they all said yes except one that said he looked a little frail and wouldn't survive too long. but he lived there for 60 years and he was one of the longest residents. he was a prolific writer. when the trustees took over the house in 1939 and looked at everything that stayed here the whole time for generations back, a standing desk that was his, when opened, revealed hundreds of sermons he had written stashed in there. and he was known to write sermons that lasted several hours. a true intellectual scholar philosopher. and after his wife died and he was becoming elderly, this room we call the parlor became his bedrooms. he moved down here and the two floors were probably too difficult for him. this is the place he would write and live and accept guests to his house as well. esra had a lasting impression in the house. many of the books in the 3,000 volume library are from him inscribed and the ripley name continues in the generations here. you can see the influence he had as a minister and town leader as well. born in 1803 in boston, massachusetts, a local boy. he spent his life in the city, for a brief time came over to the old mansion when he was younger, around 12 and continued to visit the property throughout his life and again when he wrote in 1834, when he and his mother came for a visit, the reverend ezra ripley was here. he was becoming elderly and they helped care for him for a brief period of time, too. for emerson even though he was born a city boy, this was the home for him. in 1834, he comes to the old man and puts himself in the upstairs study, which at that time was also a bedroom he could stay in. that is where he wrote "nature," the first draft of "nature." he game briefly for a nine month period he would stay in the house and overlapped with esra. this early vision of looking out continued with the people that worked and lived here including emerson, who sat at a chair just like this one. the original of the emerson chair is at the concord museum. and in collaboration with them last year, concord museum, trustees and north bennett school produced the emerson chair so visitors could actually sit in the chair where emerson wrote nature and looked out themselves over the landscape. one thing people see, they look at the original and this one we produced. this is green and the original is black. the green chair, when emerson sat in it. but painted green in the period and later victorians liked to paint things black. the chair has changed a bit. what people notice when you sit in it, it envelopes you and you feel held writing there. the other wonderful addition, writing surface is actually a natural color. this is a furniture piece of adapted use, started out as a green chair, possibly ezra ripley, a tall gentleman when he sat in it, wanted the writing surface a little higher. they did this homemade mock-up to create a higher writing surface. this is really an important place for visitors to come and look out over the landscape. right where the american revolution started the second revolution, really letterture and the american writing, revolutionary thought that happened at this house, they can look over the same view emerson had when he wrote "nature." the book, "nature" is really the book emerson wrote best known and really many look to as the start of american an tran dentalism. at that time, it was this growing idea of looking in the words of the person -- it was a philosophical and religious thought also grounded in social and political thought as well so an individual could look at themselves, look at nature and look to that for inspiration for a spiritual response. but really believed in the quality and importance of the individual, looking at everyone equally. the idea of abolitionism and trying to fight for the rights of all as well as the women's rights and education were all really important social parts of transcendentalism. that can differ from some of the other writing at the time, you look at romanticism and other philosophical thought. it looked inward without the social and political twist. many of the people involved in the american transi dentalism was core to that. when he tried to pen this philosophy down, it set o a series of conversations and devotees that really wanted to subscribe to what emerson was saying. so when he writes here, others start to trickle into concord at the same time. we have margaret coming in, the rowes wander in and alcott family wanders in. emerson is usually at the core of that. he didn't take the flag and run with it. he was this quiet leader of this idea of this tran san dentalism idea. concord was well placed for that. it was beautiful and continues to be so today and this perfect place for inspiration to happen. it was interesting because it was very hard to put down to one particular thought. there's volumes and volumes, even today what is at the kour. emerson believes the individual spirit had this great capacity to think about the world. anything as small as a leif or water droplet or person really was you could see sort of the world in that thing, that element, that person. it was a very optimistic view, very social component to it. there was so much change industrially in our city. for emerson to write that i often wonder how aware was he he was about to really change things. nathaniel hawthorne is one of our great figures in the house. one of the things i love about the old man, so layered in history, the intellectual greats from the early ministers from emerson and thorough, who visited and daniel hawthorne, they came and stayed and visited. it's interesting we have not one but several great american writers central to the story. around 1842, nathaniel hawthorne and his new wife come to the old man's to live. they have rented the house from the family. they are newlyweds, in fact the outdoor vegetable gardens was planted by thorough as a wedding present for them and we have maintained a garden in that spirit. even the windows show history. there is an etching by nathaniel hawthorne and his wife from when they used this room. they took her wedding ring that had a little diamond in it and actually etched. this is his study, nathaniel hawthorne, 1843, composed by my wife and written with her diamond on the sunset on the gold light. you get this wonderful graffiti on a window pane. we just installed this wonderful gold wall paper in the room. they used this gold wall paper in all their houses. they write there was a golden light and hanging lamp that shed beautiful light and put on a golden paper. we didn't really know what that looked like, instead of getting a ouija board and asking them, to the color scheme and the period, they didn't have a lot of money so didn't take one that had a lot of colors and went with something less expensive to bring the outside in. this is historic wall paper that dates back to the 1840s that has been reproduced for us and we had it put in this room just recently. when nathaniel hawthorne lived in this space, it was a space he and his wife really loved. they talked about coming to the study at night, read together and write together and sometimes the sewing she was doing. this was the desk hawthorne used when he wrote. it's pretty simple construction. you can bring it up or down depending on the angle that you want. it was one he really liked. he actually used a standard one, pretty simple construction, facing the wall, not too many distractions, look audited when he wanted, close to the warmth of the fire and get a little bit of breeze as ezra would come into the room and this was his desk, including one of our favorites that has to do with the old man and his time here. hawthorne talked about the dingy old antique furniture, when he was here in this 1840s. this idea that so much of the objects, so many of them were these older objects, boston objects from the ministers when they first lived here in the 1760s and later. this is the environment he is writing in. he is actually very respectful of that. he love the authenticity and intellectualism of the ministers and what they did at the house. he talks about it very fondly and looks back on his time as one of his favorite moments of their life when he and his wife started out their marriage. hawthorne befriended emerson but didn't agree with transendentalism, but respected it, he is socializing and writing and being part of that group. it's an interesting relationship in the house. we had both mens in the upstairs study at two different desks writing, doing works that would be the capstone projects of their careers. now, we will go to the third floor attic. it can get hot in the summertime. this was a great place for the old men and different rooms for people boarding and overflow space for those that worked here. a great area. we will take a look at the graffiti upstairs. when visitors come, only some will come and take a special tours upstairs to the attic, one of my favorite parts because of the graffiti from residents. if you follow me carefully, i'll to the you some of my favorites. this room has wonderful artwork with scholars and intellectual writers made it their residence including edward simmons known for doing amazing murals in the 20th century. when he was a little boy he stayed here and wrote an autobiography. as a young child he actually drew on the walls in wonderful pencils. we see these great birds and botanicals in the area. one of my favorites in this corner is a wonderful bee as well. when you think about all the kids today that take crayons and write on the walls and we have all seen that or done that, to think of an aspiring artist that would one day make murals in some of the most important buildings in our country started here as a scholar or student as a youngster. we also wrote above the door frame, good luck to all who come in or go out, at the top. he also wrote. i'll show you one more area i love down the halls. the house was built in the late 1760s. this was one of the areas, when ministers would come and stay so they could come up and practice their sermons, including in a little room in the corner we believe they used for this purpose. around the fireplace are wonderful graffitis from hawthorne, emerson, ripleys, those in the room, that came here before. we're still trying to solve the mystery of all of them. there must be at least two dozen signatures around this particular fireplace in the attic. these are really wonderful bits of history. this is one of the areas the old man shines. i have never seen so much graffiti in one house and the fingerprints of people that lived here and wanted to leave their initials here as well. this is really about the people that lived here and go through all the things we go through. you have the newlyweds, hawthornes when they moved here struggling to make ends meet and create a family. you have emerson trying to figure out who he was and life and relationship in a bigger picture. the objects in this house that have been here for every generation and recycled and reused over the years and have that fingerprint over the generations before. i think it is a house people can come and see this history and feel the connection. they can be inspired by the people that lived here, fought here, at times struggled here. emerson's influence on concord has been lasting. at the time he lived here, people loved him and known to be an amazing writer and little bit of local celebrity. the town sort of embraced him throughout his life, even when there was a fire at his home and to support him after that. he was a central town figure. even to this day, concord is an amazing place that has always understood the importance of the outdoors, preserving the past and looking ahead to the future. it's great to see that spirit has continued from the time we've been talking about with these american writers and this idea of social justice and preserving our landscapes and has really continued to this day. the people that come to concord today can be transported back to town with the town preserving the history and artifacts and many people come to concord to find that inspiration as well. for two years, henry david thoreau lived on the shores of walden pond. the purpose was to find a better answer to nature and the chronicled his experience "walden" or "life in the woods." commenting on the lasting impact of his book. thoreau %% it's interesting, very often, readers of "walden" they come to the pond are maybe a little disappointed. when you read "walden," you really are expected to be amazed at the landscape. the fact that thoreau could be everyday just staggered by a landscape as humble as this, that takes getting used to, because it was a pond. and now american history. he came out here as a little boy and he remembered that excursion long after but he came here with his family actually to gather sand for his father's sandpaper manufacturing enterprise, but he came here to live actually july 4th, 18 provide, for two years here after that. his friend, ralph waldo emerson had not long before bought the property we're standing on now. as a wood lot basically. the soil around walden isn't good for much except for growing trees. he asked emerson if he could put up a structure here and stay here for a while and emerson said, sure. his principle purpose was to find a writer's studio for himself. it was something he had been thinking about for several years, that -- and the specific project he had in mind was a book in memorium to his brother, john, who had died in 1841. the book is about a trip that he took with john in 1839. they were both very young. they took a trip by boat up to new hampshire. that's loosely the thread that runs through a week on the concord in merrimack, which is the book that he wrote here. while he was here, it's sort of easy to imagine thoreau was all alone. if you read the book, you would think he's halfway up the slope of a mountain or something, that he was off at the end of the world somewhere, but he's not. he's connected to the town. it's only a little over a mile away, especially if you take the railroad cut there and you're in town in no time. he had lots and lots of visitors while he was out here. it was not that he was isolated but he had plenty of the solitude he wanted as a thinker and a writer. the house he built, he tells us in the first chapter of walden, was 10 by 15 feet, which is a very substantial space, about the size of most craftsmen's workshops in that period. you can get a lot done in taken by 15 feet and it was sufficient. 10 by 15 feet and it was sufficient for him. he planted a field of beans and tried to get by in part on them, but the -- you know, for the rest of his living it was supplies he would get from town, rice and things like that. thoreau came to walden already with a set of ideas about what wildness is, not the wilderness but wildness. that's what interested him. part of the exercise in coming to walden was to remove himself from culture. that sounds sort of drastic but you catch artists at it now and then. there was one that went to tahiti. part of the reason he went there was to put all of europe behind him. this was something emerson suggested in a number of places. he thought it was important for americans to put that behind them. one good way to do it was to come out and live by yourself in a house with no neighbors at that point. historically, there had been other people living out here but for the most part were gone when thoreau came here. not long after he came to walden the idea of the book, "walden" started to occur to him. you look at his journal or passages clipped from it that were worked into some of the early drafts and lectures he gave on the subject, right in the beginning of "walden" the book, he says it was curiosity on the part of his neighbors. they wanted to know if he was lonely. aren't you afraid out there and so on. he started answering those questions at lectures and it kind of grew from there. he changed. it was not just the narrative of my experience the book is subtitled life in the woods. and thoreau had the publisher get rid of that subtitle eventually. it really wasn't a narrative what it's like to live in the woods, obviously a more complicated book than that. there was "walden the experience" but walden the project" wasn't published until 1954. he took up a new observation and a lot of that is reflected in the final draft of walden. 1854. it takes some exercise, intellectual exercise to pick apart those threads and figure out what it is he's up to while he was actually out here. "walden" was more successful than "a week on the conquer with merrimack," but the book he came here to write, if it didn't sell, thoreau would pay for the publication. he ended up being responsible for the publication. but "walden" sold better than that. it only went through one edition in his lifetime but it did sell much better than a week. one of the things i was careful to point out in the text of "walden" is he doesn't really mean for anybody to imitate his experiment. he talks about it as an experiment. rather, i think he wanted his readers to first have the sort of odd response to the remarkable fact of man in nature is the way thoreau put it. if leaders take that away, that was good enough for him. if they thought about the relationship between what they do to get a living and what their life consists of, i think he would have counted it as success. write err and transendentalist, ralph waldo emerson died in 1878, visitors came to his home wishing to get a glimpse of where he lived. the r.w. emerson memorial association decided to move his study to the concord museum being erected across the street. david wood, curator, describes the original items located in the study and emerson's life and career in concord, massachusetts. we're in emerson's study, as it was recreated across the road from emerson's house in concord. it's now in the concord in 1930 when this building was built, the family med a determination that, one, the study was the heart of the house. there were already a number of people coming to concord just to look at the study. even while emerson was alive they would come up to the front door to sit at him in his study. this was the moment when the ralph emerson memorial association was formed. as far as this new fireproof building was being built across the street, they decided to send the study over there. it's ceiling height, its dimensions, everything it's exactly as it is in the original. all the items in the study were sent over, all the items were those that were there at the time of emerson's death. there's a photograph of 1879, of emerson sitting in that chair. and yep, you can see the study is exactly as it was. emerson was born in boston in 1833 but he was the grandson of william emerson, concord's minister in the late 1760s and early 1770s. and emerson was very aware of that heritage. he went to harvard and then harvard divinity school and was in the pulpit of boston second parish for some years. so he was a minister. he was trained as a minister. but he left the pulpit. he had some -- he had some difficulties with the doctrines. and he wanted to move on. and just at that moment there were new opportunities arising where someone could go and speak and get paid for it. and he started doing that. and he started publishing. and those things worked out for him. he married in 1829, but his wife didn't live for long. and so he first visited europe, and then when he came back he moved to concord. so in 1834 the family's house was still there. so emerson came back and stayed there for a year, and that's when he wrote his essay "nature." it's certainly his first secular publication, his first trancedantalist, it kind of hit like a bombshell and actually made him internationally known and kind of set him up for life for his career as a public intellectual, as a speaker, as a writer. concord was a farming town, about 100 farms of 60 acres each, kind of right through that period. but because the courts met in concord, there were some lawyers in town, too. so there was a little bit of range there, a bit of manufacturing in concord. and emerson knew about everybody. there were only about 1,500, 1,800 people in town. he was much admired for his burgeoning reputation. he didn't have ups and downs. his reputation was going up his whole life. emerson made an effort to gather thinkers around him. he may even have had a aspirations for a loosely related commune of sorts. he loved to conserve with intelligent people and bring them around him. henry thoreau is a good example. henry was a protége of emerson's, and it was dleberate. emerson was always on the look out for america's poet. and this idea of an original american voice was very important to emerson. and he himself was an original american voice but he wanted more. and so ultimately you find that in emerson's study you would have gatherings that could include on any given night emerson, thoreau, branson alicate, and nathaniel hawthorne and margaret fuller and who knows who else happened to be around. students from harvard to came out, they would join the conversation. and that conversation, which was really margaret fuller's great art and branson alcott's great art, the conversation he says no man may record. they just flew. emerson it was children were frequent visitors to the study and also louisa may alcott, when she was young was given great privilege to making use of the study. you can imagine her reading plato in a shakespeare study. his last international trip was in 1873. there was a fire in the house and his daughter took him to egypt so the house could be rebuilt, and that's what we see in the study now is the post-1873 study. and lillian and edith anderson, his daughters were responsible for the renovations in the house. so he came back to sort of a new house. but then his career sort of slowed off from there. and he died in 1883. that was kind of monumental. that was a very big deal. not unexpected, so, you know, not tragic. he was 80 years old. but it, you know, it was attended with all the passing kind of era rhetoric that you would expect. quite different from thoreau's death in 1862, which was tragic. he was on the 44 for nearly 45. and for the circle, the local circle of intellectuals, thoreau was as prominent as emerson. thoreau didn't have emerson's national and international rep tal but everyone around here knew who thoreau was, and he was in many ways a real intellectual peer to emerson. so his passing was tragic. emerson's was nostalgic in a way. emerson is essential to the literary history of concord. both because of the prom neinen of his writings, the subject of his writings and but also the deliberate efforts he made to organize higher thought in america, particularly in the 1840s and '50s. he was an activist intellectual. because the study survived so essentially intact, and that was deliberate. that was ellen's work. she wanted it to stay the way he left it, and that's the sort of privilege and responsibility that we want to a living and wh their lives consists of, then i think you would have counted that as success. >> here we are in concord, massachusetts, on the lexington road, which is also known as the battle road. it's where the red coats marched into the north bridge on april 19th of 1775 starting the american revolution. this house was standing there then. eventually much, much later than that it becomes the home of amos branson alcott and his family. one of the daughters in this house writes a book that really changes a lot of the way people think about children, the way they think about young women, the way they think about mature women. it was a very progressive book for its day, and frankly in many ways it still today remains this. because oats just a simple true to loathe story, four young women and their parents. mr. alcott was an educator primarily in the early day, and mrs. alcott was an educator deeply in love with mr. alcott. they struck up quite a deep relationship. in fact, he thought branson alcott belonged here, he felt this town had something special to offer. you had the political revolution in 1775, and you sort of had a literary revolution in the 1800s. but mr. brensen really wanted mr. alcott to move here. i want to focus on a moment of what's above the fireplace. this was really an expression of mr. alcott's lifelong belief. the hills are reared, the seas are scooped in vain, if -- alter, vanish from the plain. of course it's a very elaborate way of saying never stop learning. you're never too young to start and you're never too old to keep going. that was very important. mr. alcott dedicated most of his life to education. his educational ideas were extremely unusual for the day. it was an era where most teachers were concerned primarily with order in the classroom. they would use the rod. some of the expressions we find today was not funny to children because one of them was if the boy is not bad now, he's about to be. spare the rod, spare the child. he would not strike the students. he allowed questions in the classroom, which again was frowned upon by most teachers because that would promote rudeness. the teacher knows what you have to know, so why you are encouraging these questions. so he had a lot of difficulty, and yet the children were learning more and really loved mr. alcott. so it was really the right thing, he was just about 100 years of his time. now, his lifelong dream had really been to teach adults as well. and he did find that he could finally do that in this room in 1879. so over here we have one of the cofounders of the school of blasphemy. that's what alcott chose to call his school he started in 1979. he once said mr. alcott is the foremost genius of our day. these two gentlemen were the closest of friends. they walked together on a daily basis and really supported each other in everything. o it's not a surprise he helped to cofound this concord school of philosophy, as mr. alcott called it. it soon was overflowing from these walls. people even opened the windows and stood outside so they could hear. and one of the attendees donated $500, which was a princely sum in those days and asked that a lecture hall be built. and that the building on top of the hill. many people think it was a barn, but it was actually a lecture hall. when it comes to finances the alcott's had a saying they had a sinking fund. it seemed their finances got worse and worse and worse. mr. alcott wasn't always paid very well for what he was doing. it was sometimes he was too innovative and people didn't appreciate enough what he was doing. one time he said very poignantly, promises were not always kept, he was always trying hard but not necessarily doing well financially. but sometimes it went that all the women in the household were pitching in in a way in that era was not considered very lady-like. it was supposed to be the man doing all the earning and the woman just tidying up the house and cooking and cleaning and raising the children. they were a little bit unusual financially that way. so they were definitely struggling a lot of the time. and here we are in the alcott's dining room. and of course they took meals here. her english china was sometimes used. this is the best china. and the initial "m" is for her maiden name, may. may was not a made up name. that was her maiden name spelled m-a-y. they were struggling financially a lot of the time, and so once she said we'll always be a respectful family because we have our fine china. of course she was teasing. she wasn't all that serious about it, but she was very pleased to have this in her family. and then over in this direction we have some wonderful portraits. this one is particularly interesting of louisa may alcott. now, she looks less well in this portrait than she did a few years earlier because she's 38 years old here. and she had been in the civil war as a union army nurse, contracted typhus and pneumonia, treated with heavy doses of mercury. today we know mercury is not good to digest. she managed to recover from all of this much to the amazement of many people because others who were as sick as she was did not recover. now, gorge healey, who was a very famous portrait artist at that time, learned that the famous ms. alcott was in italy at the same time he was. and little women has become an international hit. someone said to me recently louisa may in that day was more famous than j.k. rowelling. probably because there wasn't as much competition with sports stars and such. but she was a huge international sensation. and this george healey asked ms. alcott if he could paint her. i'm prod to say today we have the only other dining room in america that i know of with a george healey in it is the white house where there's a portrait of abraham lincoln done by george healey. he was in that day the big painter who would be summoned to paint presidents. so it was quite an honor. however, she was disappointed. she said i look like a smoky relic from the boston fire. there had been a fire in 1872, and it was a terrible disaster in boston. and she just thought she looked like she stepped right out of that fire. she said we should hang it behind the door. and then we have an interesting likeness of elisizabeth alcott. she's the one who died just before they moved into this house. they spent a whole year fixing this house up, they were excited about this was going to be the finest home for them. this is the place they lived the longest and yet she sort of knew because she was so ill that perhaps she would not be living here. she even said she thought sleepy hollow might be her new home, and indeed that's what happened. if you look at this archway that leads into the parlor, the girls even as young women were still putting on plays as they had done all through their early years. and they hung a curtain between these two rooms so that the tiny room portion with the table moved out of the way could become their stage. and they had many wonderful sets and scenery and costumes. they really worked hard on these. and the then audience would sit here. and in "little women" towards the beginning of the book, the girls are going to put on a play as a christmas president called the bants bride. that was really a play she did write, she did perform in it, she played the role of rodrigo. at one point in there, it describes the audience sort of sitting on a cot that collapses during the play and other times the scenery collapsed. these things happened all the time. it was always like leaouisa lik saying in the book act like nothing is wrong, keep going. i think that shows in her writing today, that her early experience doing these plays, these dramas with her sisters helped to form her writing style. louisa loved making up stories. she often made them up just out loud when they walked along, taking a walk in the area around walden pond with henry david thoreau. but she would also record a lot of these things. so i would say she was probably writing almost every day. she loved it, and it was a release for her as well. it was an outlet. she didn't have a tremendous amount of success at first, but she had some success almost from the beginning in the sense she had short stories and poems published early on, and i think that was another to keep her going. at one juncture when she was teaching school in boston and she boarded with james fields, famous publisher and his wife any, she showed mr. fields some of her writing and was very helpful she's living in that household and maybe he'll take an interest. he told her stick to your teaching, ms. alcott, that made her more determined. she paid mr. field back a loan he had very kindly given her to help with her establishment of her first little school. and she said with all due respect, i think i shall stick to my writing as it pays better than my teaching. so she really did sort of become full circle with it and became obviously a big finance success eventually. well, now coming up to the second floor we have the parents bedroom, may alcott, the youngest sister in the book, bedroom. and this the most popular, the most important where louisa may alcott wrote "little women." this was her bed chamber. this is where at a little half moon desk built for louisa by her father she sat and penned "little women." one thing i think is very important to note is that in that era it was commonly thought that brain work such as writing would ruin a woman's health. doctors had even written articles that they had now proven this. and even if you weren't concerned medically, people just thought it wasn't seemly for the woman to write seriously, to write for a publication. it was fine to write letters but, you know, this was something you should reserve for the men. the fact that louisa's family supported her in this way was really quite amazing. and the building of this desk was more than just a convenience. it was really a wonderful support psychologically for louisa may alcott. her mother was equally supportive. she made a cap, and she also gave louisa a pen and wrote a little note saying may you're muse inspire when wrapped in poetic fire. so she had wonderful support from her family. now, "little women" was a simple story to louisa. she didn't think much would come of it when she first sen it off to the publishers. but she wrote in her journal they had really lived most of it, and if succeeded that would be the reason. the publisher looked at it and didn't think much of it either, but he gave it to his niece and she loved it. the publisher decided we're going to go with it, and conservatively started off with a very small number. and that first edition sold out very fast. and so then of course more copies were printed. and people then as now might have been a little surprised, such a simple story. but it was way ahead of its time in many ways. and yet it walked a fine line between leading people into more progressive thought, such as the idea that a woman could be independent, that a woman could have ideas of her own, that she could have a temper and not be considered the villain of the piece, all of these human qualities that women were often sort of told to suppress, came out in the person of joe march and of course had been in the person of louisa may alcott all along. the family was not perfect and had flaws, and yet they supported each other. they kept going. so this is a very inspiring role model for people who read this book, especially young women for whom it was really intended. "little women" succeeded beyond louisa's wildest imaginings. it made her really a stupor star of the day. a publisher, they later become little brown, thomas advised louisa to keep the copyright, which was wonderful advice because that meant she could really make money on this book. and she became quite wealthy. by the standards of the day, you would almost think of her like a millionaire today. it made the family comfortable, all the debts to be repaid. and she was so generous, she was always doing kindness for others. if she could do it, she often would be helping others in much the same way they had been helped when she was wrong, particularly by rob wauldo emerson, their close family friend. he was always slipping a $10 bill ada table cloth or something like that and making sure they didn't see, so they couldn't just find it and say you put that there. so she made a difference in everyone's life who was anywhere near her. you know, it's interesting. the literary history of concord is so multifaceted. and depending upon one's interest, you can easilygist bypa bypass an author's home, but there's something about this particularly book and house that is so unique that as far as i know it's the only piece of literature that not only has maintained its importance to so many people, it's never been out of print, well over 50 translations, very beloved by people of all cultures, and it was written and set in a house that is now open to the public. when people walk through this house they often will say to me this is like walking through the book. someone once said it's as if you could really go to hogwarts after you read "harry potter." but hogwarts is not a real place, and this is. this weekend c-span's city tour takes you to springfield, missouri. we're working with media comm to explore the literary scene and history. saturday at noon eastern at book tv, author jeremy neely talks about the conflict occurring along the kansas/missouri border in his book, the border between them. >> john brown having left kansas comes back to the territory, and he begins a series of raids into western missouri, during which his men will liberate enslaved people from missouri and help them escape to freedom. in the course of this they'll kill a number of slave holders. and so the legend or notoriety of john brown really grows, as part of this struggle that people locally understand is really the beginning of the civil war. >> then saunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history tv, we visit the nra national sporting museum. >> theodore roosevelt was probably our shootingest president. he was a very avid hunter. the first thing he did when he left office was organize and go on a very large hunting safari to africa. now, this particular rifle was prepared specifically for roosevelt. it has the presidential seal engraved on the breach. and of course roosevelt was famous for the bold moose party. and there is a bold moose engraved on the side plate of this gun. >> watch c-span's cities tour of missouri saturday at noon eastern and saturday at 2:00 p.m. on c-span 3. working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. sunday night on afterwards, federal appellate judge john newman looks back at his 38 judicial career on his book "benched." >> as a judge of 45 years having gone from that active life of making decisions and going to court and advocating a case to judging, was that a difficult transition for you? and did you ever miss the life of advocacy, so to speak? >> it wasn't difficult. it has been for some i've known. in fact, i've known people who became judges and so disliked the decision making process that they left the bench. i was an advocate. i was glad to be an advocate. i found the decision making process while it was different, enormously challenging, enormously satisfying. i got to say i loved being a judge. because the opportunity to resolve disputes large and small, they all matter to somebody, but some of them have large public significance. and that's a very satisfying role. >> watch a after words at 9 eastern sunday night on book tv on c-span 2. hi, i'm debby lam, the coordinating producer on our cities tour team. this year we visited 24 cities exploring their unique history and literary life. we're going to show you sever

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