John Matteson

Biographer

• Born: 1961
• Place of Birth: San Mateo, California

Contribution: John Matteson is a professor of English and legal writing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. His first book, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (2007), won the biography Pulitzer Prize in 2008.

Background

John Matteson was born in San Mateo, California. He moved east to attend Princeton University, where he studied history, graduating in 1983. Matteson then attended Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1986. After serving as a US District Court law clerk in North Carolina and later practicing law in private practice, in 1991 he returned to graduate school in New York, pursuing his PhD in English at Columbia University. In 1997, while finishing graduate school, he joined the faculty at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York (CUNY). He graduated from Columbia in 1999.

While Matteson was pursuing his PhD, he cared for his infant daughter while his wife worked full-time. He became interested in writing a book and, in light of his experience with his daughter, chose to write about an education-oriented father and his independent-minded child. The relationship between Louisa May Alcott and her father, Bronson, ultimately became the focus of his book. He has said that, aside from his scholarly fascination with the subject, the information he uncovered during his research for Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father (2007) helped him become a better parent to his own daughter. He remained at John Jay, earning the position of distinguished professor of English in 2012.

Career

During his tenure at John Jay College, Matteson has written numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, including ones focusing on the works of Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William James. However, while writing these pieces, he was slowly developing a study of the life of Louisa May Alcott. In particular, Matteson was interested in learning the dynamics of her relationship with her father, Bronson Alcott.

Amos Bronson Alcott was a philosopher, conservationist, and teacher. When his daughter was still young, the elder Alcott moved them to a farmhouse in Harvard, Massachusetts, to create a communal farm he dubbed Fruitlands. To do so, he drained his family’s financial holdings. After only a few months, the farm failed, and the family returned to their original community of Concord, Massachusetts. While the Alcotts lived on limited resources, the relationship between Bronson and his daughter deepened, and their experiences inspired many of her later literary works.

Matteson drew parallels between the Alcotts and his own home. He has described the project as one that developed a life of its own as he continued to perform his research. Critics have hailed Eden’s Outcasts not only for its insights and detail but for its uniqueness as well: countless books had been written about both Bronson and Louisa May Alcott, but until Eden’s Outcasts, there was no work that fully explored the relationship between the two. Matteson’s biography was identified as one of the best books of 2007 by a number of media outlets. It ultimately won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for biography and received a citation from the Massachusetts state legislature.

Shortly after receiving the Pulitzer, Matteson returned to work researching a new topic, a study of nineteenth-century journalist and feminist Margaret Fuller, who had been an assistant of Bronson Alcott’s shortly before he moved to Fruitlands. In his book, Matteson explores the contradictions between Fuller’s considerable achievements—becoming a leading transcendentalist and the first American female foreign correspondent—and her persistent feelings of self-doubt. In addition to a large number of highly positive critical reviews, The Lives of Margaret Fuller: A Biography (2012) garnered an Ann M. Sperber Award for biography of a journalist, granted by Fordham University. It was shortlisted for the PEN/Weld Prize for Biography and Plutarch Award as well.

In addition to his literary awards, Matteson has been honored by the institutions at which he has worked and studied. Columbia University’s School of Arts and Sciences honored him with its Dean’s Award for Distinguished Achievement by a PhD Alumnus, and he also won the John Jay College Alumni Association’s Distinguished Faculty Award. In 2011, he was named a fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Following his awards, Matteson began work on a biography of American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and an annotated version of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868–69). The latter was published in 2015 and became a bestseller. He also contributed to the film Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Who Wrote Little Women, which appeared on PBS in 2009 as part of the American Masters series. Matteson also later researched and lectured on the legacy of the Battle of Fredericksburg on American culture. In 2021, he published A Worse Place than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation. This tome follows five historical figures who stood on both sides of the war—Louisa May Alcott, Arthur Fuller, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., John Pelham, and Walt Whitman—through the battle and beyond.

From 2010 to 2012, Matteson directed the Honors Program at John Jay. He also served as deputy director at the CUNY Leon Levy Center for Biography from 2011 to 2013. A member of the Modern Language Association, he became secretary for its Committee on GS Life Writing in 2016.

In addition to his longer works, Matteson has contributed chapters to essay collections and published academic journal articles, book reviews, and essays in major newspapers and magazines like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Atlantic.

Impact

John Matteson’s Eden’s Outcasts was hailed by critics and scholars alike for its innovative look at the relationship between Louisa May Alcott and her father. Matteson’s own ideals and experiences played a role in the construction of the book, resulting in an empathetic and personal delivery of the material.

Personal Life

John Matteson has a wife and daughter.

Bibliography

“Distinguished Professor John Matteson Honored for Latest Biography.” John Jay College of Criminal Justice. John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice, 2012. Web. 24 July 2013.

Greenwood, Katherine Federici. “John Matteson ’83 Wins Pulitzer Prize in Biography.” Princeton Alumni Weekly. Trustees of Princeton U, 11 June 2008. Web. 24 July 2013.

“John Jay’s Matteson Wins 2008 Pulitzer for Biography.” John Jay College of Criminal Justice. John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice, 7 Apr. 2008. Web. 24 July 2013.

"John T. Matteson." John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 2024, www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/john-t-matteson. Accessed 20 Sept. 2024.

Matteson, John. “TMI: John Matteson, Pulitzer Prize–Winning Biographer, Hanging Out in Hartford.” Interview by Krystian Von Speidel. CT.com. Tribune Interactive, 14 June 2011. Web. 24 July 2013.

Norton, Mary Beth. “Margaret Fuller: Woman of the World.” Rev. of The Lives of Margaret Fuller: A Biography, by John Matteson. New York Times. New York Times, 20 Jan. 2012. Web. 24 July 2013.

Thompson, Kathleen Logothetis. "A Worse Place than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation by John Matteson (Review)." Civil War History, vol. 68, no. 2, 2022, pp. 215-217, doi.org/10.1353/cwh.2022.0019. Accessed 20 Sept. 2024.