ABSTRACT
An investigation into literate practices just outside the margins of power and prestige highlights alternate practices and comments on those more powerful strategies and stances. To understand Alcott's work and influence on the margin of the Metaphysical Club can therefore deepen and extend our understanding both of pragmatism and its rhetoric and of the literacy practices of women, typically on the margins. Louisa May Alcott succeeded as a writer; her own literacy practices worked to give her prestige and an income that supported her family. Early in her life, Louisa became a contributor to the family purse, and she was the main source of support for her mother, father, and sisters for most of her life. Alcott's work enriches and extends the Metaphysical Club's pragmatic idea by suggesting how women, who could anticipate independence through literacy but hardly philosophical influence, might employ a pragmatism of their own at work, in the home, and in their imaginations.
