The Notable Videos for Adults committee selected 15 outstanding titles from among 55 nominees for this year’s list of Notable Videos for Adults. The Committee called the film “a lively biography of an independent woman with ideas ahead of her time who supported her impoverished family by writing romantic fiction and creating some of the most beloved characters in American literature.”

Opened in 1855 by Harvey D. Parker, the original Parker House hotel was home to the  Saturday Club, which consisted of literary dignitaries such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The library outreach program for “Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women,” a collaboration among NEH, the ALA Public Programs Office and Nancy Porter and Harriet Reisen for Filmmakers Collaborative, has been designated as part of NEH’s We the People initiative, exploring significant events and themes in our nation’s history and culture and advancing knowledge of the principles that define America. Funding was provided by a major grant from NEH to the ALA Public Programs Office.

The selected libraries, listed in alphabetical order by state, are:

1. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif.
2. Oceanside Public Library, Oceanside, Calif.
3. Poudre River Public Library District, Fort Collins, Colo.
4. Broward County Library, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
5. Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, Atlanta.
6. Berry College Memorial Library, Mount Berry, Ga.
7. University of Idaho Library, Moscow, Idaho
8. Milner Library, Illinois State University, Normal, Ill.
9. Rooney Library, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind.
10. Drake Community Library, Grinnell, Iowa
11. Western Kentucky University Libraries, Bowling Green, Ky.
12. Hingham Public Library, Hingham, Mass.
13. Rochester Hills Public Library, Rochester, Mich.
14. Mid-Continent Public Library, Independence, Mo.
15. Wayne Public Library, Wayne, N.J.
16. Octavia Fellin Public Library, Gallup, N.M.
17. Oneida Public Library, Oneida, N.Y.
18. University at Buffalo Libraries, Buffalo, N.Y.
19. New Hanover County Public Library, Wilmington, N.C.
20. Sandusky Library, Sandusky, Ohio
21. Noble Public Library, Noble, Okla.
22. Multnomah County Library, Portland, Ore.
23. Elizabethtown Public Library, Elizabethtown, Pa.
24. Snowden Library, Lycoming College, Williamsport, Pa.
25. Providence Public Library, Providence, R.I.
26. Ned R. McWherter Library, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tenn.
27. Austin Public Library, Austin, Texas
28. Orem Public Library, Orem, Utah
29. Brownell Library, Essex Junction, Vt.
30. Raynor Memorial Libraries, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wis.

Louisa May Alcott is recognized around the world for her novel “Little Women,” but Alcott is scarcely known as the bold, compelling woman who secretly wrote sensational thrillers, lived at the center of the Transcendentalist and Abolitionist movements and served as a Civil War army nurse. The film, biography and library programs will re-introduce audiences to Alcott by presenting a story full of fresh insights, startling discoveries about the author and a new understanding of American culture during her lifetime. The 30 selected libraries will present five reading, viewing and discussion programs focused on Alcott, her body of work and her era. Libraries will enlist a lead project scholar with expertise in 19th-century American history or literature to help present and plan programs. For more information, visit www.ala.org/louisamayalcott.

The ALA Public Programs Office promotes cultural and community programming as an essential part of library service in all types and sizes of libraries. Successful library programming initiatives have included “Let’s Talk About It” reading and discussion series, traveling exhibitions, film discussion programs, the Great Stories CLUB, Live! @ your library and more. Recently, the ALA Public Programs Office developed www.ProgrammingLibrarian.org, an online resource center bringing librarians timely and valuable information to support them in the creation of high-quality cultural programs for their communities. For more information on the ALA Public Programs Office, visit www.ala.org/publicprograms.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports learning in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities. NEH grants enrich classroom learning, create and preserve knowledge and bring ideas to life through public television, radio, new technologies, exhibitions and programs in libraries, museums and other community places. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.

Friday, October 15, 9 am-12 pm
University at Albany, SUNY (seminar)
Standish Room, Science Library, University at Albany (uptown campus), SUNY, Albany, NY
(free and open to the public)

For directions and info: www.albany.edu/writers-inst

Both events are presented by UAlbany’s Documentary Studies Program and Department of History, in conjunction with the New York State
Writers Institute and the M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, with support from University Auxiliary Services and
the New York State Archives Partnership Trust. Thursday evening’s event was made possible through a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities.

Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women – Library Outreach Programs has been designated as part of the NEH’s We the People initiative, exploring significant events and themes in our nation’s history and culture and advancing knowledge of the principles that define America. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women – Library Outreach Programswill offer programming grants of $2,500 to thirty selected libraries to present five reading, viewing, and discussion programs focused on Louisa May Alcott, her body of work, and her era.

For more information, click here.

Join scholars, educators, and Alcott fans from across the country and around the world to listen, learn, and share in honoring the bicentennial of Margaret Fuller’s birth.

This year’s Series spotlights the contributions of women of the 19th Century and focuses on their attempts to stretch the limits of what was then considered their “sphere.”

Each day, ample opportunities for Q&A with Presenters, as well as small group discussions, will be available. Every afternoon is devoted to helping educators understand how the Series content can be applied to their curricular needs, with a keen awareness of Massachusetts Frameworks.

Participants
Educators from all grade levels and subjects — including home schoolers — are welcome to attend, as is anyone wishing to learn more about the remarkably progressive Alcott family and their notable friends and neighbors.

For more information and to register, log on to: www.louisamayalcott.org

“You don’t grow up to walk two steps behind your husband when you’ve met Jo March,” says one Alcott fan.

In the time since Little Women was published in 1868, Reisen says she believes a countless number of women have — as Alcott put it — “resolved to take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her.”

Listen here to the NPR interview