Sunday, July 22, 2012

Resiliency, big brains, and...cats: An interview with Kristi Martin

Last week, Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House held their annual Summer Conversational Series - five days of discussion, lectures, books and some pretty top-notch speakers. The subjects were varied and fascinating, yet always with a focus on Louisa and her family.

LMA Orchard House
For us, the absolute highlight of our week was attending the presentation by our dear friend, fellow history geek and all around brilliant person, Kristi Martin. 

We've been lucky enough to claim Kristi as friend for a few years now, and though we always knew she had a ginormous brain tucked away into her head, that didn't stop us from being astounded by her paper and the clarity and charm with which she delivered it. Everything we love about Concord, the authors and, the things that keep history so endlessly enchanting for us seemed to be wrapped up somehow in Ms. Martin's superb lecture, and we think everyone else should get to hear it too!

Kristi, at Bronson's School of Philosophy
While a second reading may be possible later this summer or in the fall (be still our beating hearts!) we thought it would be fun in the meantime to learn more about Kristi and share it here. As a result, she graciously submitted to an interview and answered every one of our nosy questions below. What a woman!


[GT] As fellow geeks, we know what it's like to fall madly in love with someone who's, well, dead. So what was it about Louisa that first grabbed your heart?



[KM] With Louisa, it was love at first sight. I was introduced to her while watching HBO Behind the Scenes for the then forthcoming 1994 movie Little Women, which included a short segment about the Alcotts and Orchard House. I was about 13 years old, and already enthralled with the 19th century. I enjoyed learning about history through personal biography. I was fascinated to learn that Little Women was a "real" story about real sisters. As the portraits of the Alcott sisters flashed across the screen, I felt a powerful instinctive attraction to them. Its difficult to describe or explain it, but I was drawn to them and I loved them instantly. There was an emotional depth and intelligence in Louisa's eyes that I found very compelling. After obsessing for a few days, my mom and sister finally gave in and took me to a book store, where I bought my first biography of Louisa May Alcott. So, began my love affair - not only with Louisa - but with Concord, Massachusetts. I  am now passionately devoted to  many of Concord's historical citizens, but Louisa remains my first love. There is always something powerfully lasting about that first love, isn't there?


[GT] How did you come by the unique idea of exploring Alcott's resiliency for this paper for the Summer Conversational Series? Was this something that had been kicking around in your head already?

[KM] My topic was initially inspired by this year's Conversational Series theme: "Legacy of a Powerful Voice." I began to think about what it was that attracted me to Louisa and what about her has kept me hooked for eighteen years. I realized that I turn to her again and again in times of need; that I rely on her example, her strength and resiliency, as a source for my own. She was amazing. She's been a rock for me. She introduced me to all many of my other spiritual guides: Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson ... and so many of my historical friends!   

[GT] We loved the way you highlighted how Louisa's own personality shines out of her fictional characters. Which of Louisa's creations do you think reflect her most accurately?

[KM] That is a difficult question. Louisa was a multifaceted person, which is one of the qualities that makes her so fascinating and enduring as an author and historical figure. She put different aspects of herself into her various fictional characters, but at the same time these characters are fictional. Louisa's stories are obsessed with masks and disguises. Her characters functioned in this way for her. Not to be cliche, but, I think it is "Jo March" in Little Women that represents Louisa in the most dynamic, multidimensional form of all the fictional characters. By the time she wrote Little Women, she had worked out many of the character's different aspects in other stories. Little Women is also much longer than many of her other writings, allowing her that space to expand on the character. 

Bob
[GT] You have a cat named Bob. What did he think of your paper? (Come on! We KNOW you read it to him.)

[KM(Laughing Out Loud) OK. OK. I confess: Bob was my first audience. He was perplexed as to why Louisa would think her great love of cats was a great fault, because he and I agree that cats are the most magnificent creatures in the world. 

[GT] After completing your doctorate, how do you hope to apply all that amazing knowledge now crammed into your brain?

[KM] I plan to continue working in the museum world, as a curator. When I was about four or five years old, I was visiting a local historic house museum village with my family. I told my grandfather that I was going to live in a particular house when I grew up. He suggested that I meant a house like that one. I maintained, "No, this one." I love the unique ways artifacts and places - the physical stuff that remains from the past - can tell stories and teach us not only about the past, but about ourselves as well. I also plan to write - history, biography, and historical fiction. I love research and discovering new things that I didn't know before, and I love telling stories.



[GT] As far as 19th-century American literature goes, Alcott remains a solidly popular author while fewer and fewer schools are including the works of Concord's other writers in their curriculum, namely, Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau. Why do you think this is?



[KM] I'm not sure that Alcott is well represented in school curriculum either. She tends to be taken less seriously than traditional male canonical authors, such as Emerson and Hawthorne. I think Alcott is more popular, because her writing is more accessible, easier to relate to, and just plain fun! Although Thoreau's dry humor makes me laugh out loud, he is not as approachable as Alcott. Her humor is more self-evident. While Emerson and Thoreau wrote Philosophy, Alcott wrote fiction, which naturally lends itself to popular culture. Her stories are also  less fantastical or mystical than Hawthorne's; there is a strong realism in Alcott's fiction, whereas the Concord men tended more toward the metaphysical. She wrote about human emotions and experiences, rather than about ideas. The ideas are in there, but they are translated through the fictional plot and characters, which makes them more palpable. Alcott can be dark like Hawthorne, but there is an optimistic hopeful balance in Alcott that makes the worlds of her stories more comfortable places than Hawthorne's are. I should say, I adore all four of these authors!



[GT] And speaking of other authors, you've managed to work in every historic house museum in Concord, EXCEPT Orchard House. What gives? Or would that be like, too much of a good thing?
The Wayside

[KM] Not quite every other; I've never worked at The Wayside (laughing). I would love to be more involved with Orchard House (and the Wayside for that matter). I don't think I could ever have enough of my Concord authors. My involvement with the Old Manse and the Thoreau birthplace came somewhat by good fortune. These were opportunities that I came into through other projects. My position at the Emerson House is the only one I specifically applied for. I feel very blessed to be able to work at each of these houses. In my mind  these special places have always been connected to one another. Each of the houses is owned by separate institutions, but - for me - they are inseparable, their stories are so interconnected that each expands on the others. Its part of what makes Concord and this circle of author's so unique. Each place has the power to tell a part of a much larger, multidimensional story that is shared between them. It has been a long-time dream of mine to be involved with the story telling and teaching at each of Concord's historic houses. It's my passion.  I'm currently developing plans to found a "Friends" organization to support the preservation efforts at The Wayside, which is desperately in need of  love and attention. As for Orchard House, who can tell what the future may hold...    


[GT] What do you like best about interacting with tourists and visitors to Concord and what do you hope they come away with? (Besides a new book!)

Louisa. Really, how can you
NOT fall in love with her?
[KM] It's so much fun! It's very rewarding to watch visitors make connections with the past. It's a wonderful moment, when you can see a certain expression cross their face and you know they have emotionally or intellectually grasped something that they will keep with them for the rest of their lives. One day, after I had completed what I thought was a standard, regular, every-day tour, a visitor came up to me and told me how important our work as tour guides is. She said that we make history come alive, and have the power to mediate those meaningful connections that become a lasting part of visitors' lives. She thanked me. It's one of those connections that I hope visitors go away with. 

[GT] Finally, if you could bring Louisa back and ask her just one thing, what would it be? 

[KM] Oh gosh! Just one??? I'm torn between "What was so terrible about loving cats?" and "Can I give you a hug?"
Kristi Martin: history geek, cat lover,
and all around stellar human being.

                                      ******

KRISTI LYNN MARTIN – Boston University Graduate Program
Kristi is a doctoral candidate in American and New England Studies at BU, where she also earned her Museum Studies Certificate. Kristi’s areas of study are 19th Century American culture, Transcendentalism, and Concord’s authors. She has also worked in Special Collections and Preservation, and was a research assistant for Walter Stahr’s forthcoming biography of William Henry Seward (Simon and SchusterSeptember 2012). Since moving to Concord, Kristi has worked as a historical interpreter at The Old Manse, Emerson House, and Thoreau Birthplace, and is a licensed Town Guide. Her dissertation is planned on the Transcendentalist experience of death, grief, and mourning, and she is beginning research on a biography of the Alcott sisters as well. A long-time attendee of the Summer Conversation Series, Kristi is honored to be a Presenter during Orchard House’s Centennial, and delighted to speak on Louisa May Alcott, who first sparked her passionate love affair with Concord. Her annotated version of Adaline Lindsley’s diary is currently being considered by University of Rochester Press.





Stay tuned to find out when Ms. Martin's lecture entitled "Her Own Heroine: Strength and Resiliency in the Fiction of Louisa May Alcott" will be presented again!










No comments:

Post a Comment