Louisa May Alcott had many famous friends

Alcott's youth was fully devoted to the purpose of making friends and integrating with her father's acquaintances. those introduced by her father include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Alcott's early education is listed as containing lessons from naturalist Henry David Thoreau, who inspired her to write Thoreau's Flute based on her time at Walden Pond. However, most of the upbringing and upbringing she received came from a father who was strict and believed in his overconfidence along with his faith in extreme love for his children. She also received some instruction from writers and educators such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and Julia Ward Howe, all of whom were family friends. She recounted her memories of these early years in a newspaper manuscript titled "Transcendental Wild Oats". The sketch was reprinted in Silver Pitchers (1876), about the family's experiment in "living simply and thinking high" in the Fruitlands.

Despite growing up in a modest family, Alcott had access to a wealth of educational opportunities with the modernist knowledge that made her who she is. She also read books in Emerson's library and learned about botany at Walden Pond with Thoreau, after which she wrote a poem called "Thoreau's Flute" for her friend. Not only that, she also associated with abolitionist Frederick Douglass and women's suffrage activist Julia Ward Howe.