Abigail May Alcott Nieriker
| May Alcott Nieriker | |
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Portrait of May Alcott Nieriker by Rose Peckman (detail)
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| Born |
Abigail May Alcott July 26, 1840 Concord, Massachusetts |
| Died | December 29, 1879 (aged 39) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, William Morris Hunt, William Rimmer, Krug, Vautier and Müller |
| Known for | Painting |
| Spouse(s) | Ernest Nieriker |
(Abigail) May Alcott Nieriker (July 26, 1840 – December 29, 1879) was an American artist and the youngest sister of Louisa May Alcott. She was the basis for the character Amy (an anagram of May) in her sister's semi-autobiographical novel Little Women (1868). She was named after her mother, Abigail May, and first called Abba, then Abby, and finally May, which she asked to be called in November 1863 when in her twenties.
Her temperament was elastic, susceptible. She had a lively fancy, a clear understanding... [I]ndependence was a marked trait.… She held her fortunes in her hands, and failure was a word unknown in her vocabulary of effort.
Abigail May Alcott was born July 26, 1840 in Concord, Massachusetts, Abigail May was the youngest of the four daughters born to Amos Bronson Alcott.
Her sister was the novelist Louisa May Alcott, who supported her studies in Europe and with whom she had a fond relationship, although Louisa May was at times jealous of her easy ability to get what she wanted and needed and of her family life.
Artistic from an early age, she was the inspiration for Amy, one of the sisters in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, who was described as follows: "She was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art."
She studied teaching at the Bowdoin School, a Boston public school beginning in January, 1853. Taking over for Louisa in 1861, May taught at the first Kindergarten founded by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody for a month before returning to her own work. Beginning in December, 1860, May was in Syracuse, New York, where she taught an early form of art therapy at Dr. Wilbur's asylum (Syracuse State School). then returned home in August, 1861 or 1862 to begin teaching art at the Concord school run by her father's friend Franklin Benjamin Sanborn.
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