Alcott's novel narrates six months in the life of the students at Plumfield, a school run by German Professor Friedrich and his wife, Mrs. Josephine Bhaer (née March). The idea of the school is first suggested at the very end of Little Women, Part Two, when Jo inherits Plumfield Estate from her late Aunt March.
The story was originally inspired by the death of Alcott's brother-in-law, which is revealed in one of the last chapters, when a beloved character, John Brooke, from Little Women dies.
Alcott’s first inspiration for bringing educational ideals into the home and the development of a home-like model into the classroom, stems from her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, “an educational reformer and prominent Transcendentalist.” As a “Transcendentalist visionary,” her father was considered unconventional even among his reform contemporaries. Educational theorists such as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, also provided the inspiration for Alcott’s educational methodologies and “stressed the need for the school to be as homelike as possible."
As an educational reformer, Alcott's father believed education, “should simply turn the child’s mind inward to recognize that divinity.” Alcott's father also “believed that the theatrical performance of moral allegories by children would train them in the self-restraint that was the basis of domestic harmony and happiness."
Bronson Alcott’s appeal to children’s imagination “was part of an effort to harness the child’s imaginative powers to the pursuit of the passionless life.” Alcott incorporates family dramatizations for the children of Plumfield to teach children "how to control every aspect of their self-expression.”
One of the main models for Friedrich was Henry David Thoreau (in fact he appears in multiple disguises in all of LMA´s novels). Louisa attended Concord Academy where Henry and his brother John were teachers. Some of the elements in Friedrich´s character that come from Henry in Little Men, include Friedrich using phrases such as "gods garden". Friedrich has given all children their own little garden spots, which is something that Henry did as well. In the same way as Jo and Friedrich, Henry and Louisa often went to long walks together. Henry was a naturalist and his interest in the natural world can be seen in Little Men in Dan Kean´s character.
