UC professor curates Little Women exhibition to accompany Playhouse in the Park production
A new display highlights 158 years of artwork inspired by Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel
Exhibition Information
Starts: January 1, 2026
Ends: February 27, 2026
Location: DAAP Library, 342 Clifton Court Cincinnati OH 45220
Theresa Leininger-Miller, Ph.D., curated Little Women, Illustrated, an exhibition showcasing nearly 160 years of artwork inspired by the classic American novel. Timed with Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s production of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, the display features rare, illustrated editions from UC Libraries and private collections, from 1868 to 2025.
Theresa Leininger-Miller, Ph.D., Photo/Provided
Theresa Leininger-Miller, Ph.D., professor of art history in the School of Art at the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) at the University of Cincinnati, has been a Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park subscriber for more than 30 years. When she saw that the Playhouse would stage Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women this winter season, she saw an opportunity to connect her research interests in illustration to a story she has loved since childhood. First published in two parts in 1868 and 1869, Little Women has never been out of print and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Today, the estimated number of copies is 10 million. Leininger-Miller said its popularity endures because the novel tells a coming-of-age story that still resonates.
The youths are believable, and they show impatience, anger and frustration with each other, but they also share the joy of first loves, music, acting and publishing. Additionally, they grieve together over a death in the family. We can all relate to that.
Theresa Leininger-Miller, Ph.D.
“It concerns American teenagers, both the four sisters and the boy next door, transitioning into adulthood,” she said. “The youths are believable, and they show impatience, anger and frustration with each other, but they also share the joy of first loves, music, acting and publishing. Additionally, they grieve together over a death in the family. We can all relate to that.”
Leininger-Miller’s exhibition highlights the work of more than a dozen illustrators who helped shape the novel’s visual legacy for nearly 160 years. Book jackets, frontispieces and illustrations bring to life the adventures, bonds, romances and losses of the four March sisters — Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy — coming of age in Civil War-era Massachusetts.
Little Women, Illustrated exhibition. Photo by Kevin Bolanos Gonzalez.
Featuring original books from UC Libraries and private collections published between 1868 and 2025, the display includes reproductions of illustrations and short biographies of celebrated American and English artists, including May Alcott, Hammatt Billings, Clara M. Burd, Barbara Cooney, Betty Fraser, Millicent Etheldreda Gray, Louis Jámbor, Frank Merrill, Norman Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith, Harvé Stein, Alice Barber Stephens and Tasha Tudor.
Little Women figurine. Photo by Kevin Bolanos Gonzalez.
Leininger-Miller began curating the exhibition last spring, tracking down editions from multiple sources, including UC Libraries and a neighbor who loaned a 1950 edition with art by Jessie Willcox Smith. She also purchased several books and a 1937 issue of Woman’s Home Companion with illustrations by Norman Rockwell for a mini biography of Alcott. An additional acquisition was a Franklin Mint porcelain figurine of Amy by illustrator Tasha Tudor, a Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book artist.
Leininger-Miller has curated nine exhibitions of illustrated sheet music and two of 19th-century photography. Her recent publications include an essay in a Metropolitan Museum of Art catalog and her co-edited anthology, Illustrated Sheet Music in the U.S., 1830-1930 (London: Bloomsbury, 2025), to which she contributed two chapters.
Special thanks to Elizabeth Meyer and Sam Yeganeh, a Ph.D. candidate in architecture, for assistance with installation and exhibition setup.
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