Concord, MA

 There were two museums we tried to visit in Concord.  One was closed, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Museum.  We did go down to Walden Pond, though.  We toured the Louisa May Alcott Museum.  I wasn't super excited about visiting the home of one of my mom's favorite authors, but we went and it was actually interesting.  Louisa's father wasn't a very successful man by the world's and community's standards, but he highly valued education and supported his daughters in pursuing their interests even if it wasn't culturally accepted.  Because Louisa's Little Women was so popular and successful, she was able to support her family.  Instead of moving into the city, the family made only modest upgrades to their simple life.  My favorite story was that after Louisa's sister, May, received training in Europe, she taught an odd boy in the community how to whittle turnips and eventually make sculptures out of clay.  He learned bronze making and stone carving.  That man's first commissioned work still exists in Concord today.  It's a tribute to the Minutemen of the Revolution.  His last commissioned work was the Lincoln Memorial.  When he was honored for the masterpiece, he brought his tools that had been given to him by May Alcott and attributed his start in sculpting to her.