Little Women they were not married. ""Little Women" indisputably enlarges the myth of American womanhood by insisting that the home and the women's sphere cherish individuality and thus produce young adults who can make their way in the world while preserving a critical distance from its social arrangements." As with all youth, the March girls had to grow up. These sisters, and in particular Jo, were apprehensive about adulthood because they were afraid that, by conforming to what society wanted, they would lose their special individuality. Alcott "made women's rights integral to her stories, and above all to "Little Women"." Alcott's fiction
Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross asked two local women – Pauline LaPlante ( - 1926) and Christine Rousseau ( - 1900) – to come home from their formation with the Dominican Order in Racine, Wisconsin, (about 150 miles south), to teach and provide medical care to the Belgian residents. Sisters LaPlante and Rousseau accepted Father Daems' request. With the help of Sister Pius Doyle and Mary Van Lanen, a neighboring farm girl, the four women became the religious community's founding members. In 1881, the women were officially recognized as a diocesan community by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, which marked 1868 as