ABSTRACT
Jo March is caught between two competing models of nineteenth-century girlhood: one that encouraged Christian submission and another that promoted pioneering independence. Young Louisa's journals indicate that she learned a great deal simply by watching her mother respond to her father's inability to financially support the family. Little Women not only associates Jo's lack of sympathy for the poor with her tomboy identity but also shows that it may have dangerous consequences. By surrounding herself with schoolboys, Jo maintains some ties with her tomboy identity, but there is, nevertheless, a conservative undercurrent to her transformation. Louisa May Alcott underscores Jo's connection to Dan Savage by describing him as a "colt," which as Elizabeth Barnes notes is a term also associated with Jo in the opening chapters of Little Women. The Alcott family also welcomed fugitive slaves into their own home, teaching them how to read and write.
