Traveling economies : American women's travel writing / Jennifer Bernhardt Steadman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steadman, Jennifer Bernhardt, 1971-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Travelers' writings, American--History and criticism.

Travelers' writings, American.

American prose literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

American prose literature.

American prose literature--Women authors.

American prose literature--19th century--History and criticism.

Women travelers--United States--History--19th century.

Women travelers.

Women travelers--United States--Social conditions--19th century.

Women authors, American--19th century--Political and social views.

Women authors, American.

Women travelers in literature.

Feminism in literature.

Travel in literature.

Political and social views.

Social conditions.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

viii, 208 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Columbus : Ohio State University Press, [2007]

Summary:

The black and white women travel writers whom Jennifer Bernhardt Steadman investigates in Traveling Economies astonish modern readers with their daring, stamina, and courage. That these women traveled at all is surprising: Nancy Prince spent nearly a decade as an African American member of the Russian Imperial Court; Amy Morris Bradley went to Costa Rica as a governess in hopes of saving her health and finances after years as an impoverished teacher in Maine; and Julia Archibald Holmes carried the banner of dress reform to the heights of Pikes Peak and to the pages of a feminist periodical. Developing the concept of the "ragged edge," Steadman highlights these women's shared experiences of penury, work, and independence. Genteel poverty, black skin, outspoken feminism, or sometimes all three impacted the materia) conditions of their ragged-edge travel (early muckraking journalist Anne Royall walked until her feet were a bloody mass of blisters). Being on the ragged edge also affected the way they represented themselves and their travels (Mary Ann Shadd Cary presented her outspoken advocacy of black emigration to Canada as appropriately feminine). Frances Wright used her travel writing to imagine the new nation as a potential utopia for women citizens; she paid a high price for daring to try to change the social terrain she crossed. Steadman's interdisciplinary work with archives, newspapers, memoirs, and letters and her thoughtful close readings of the resulting evidence recover these important women's travels and writing and invite us to rethink where and how women went and what they wrote in antebellum America.

Contents:

Ragged-edge travelers Amy Morris Bradley and Nancy Prince evaluate the economies of travel

Scolding the nation: the political travel writing of Anne Royall

Traveling uplift: Mary Ann Shadd Cary creates and connects Black communities

A "singular spectacle of a female": Frances Wright's traveling figure

To the summit of equality: a feminist traveler, bloomers, and the antebellum feminist press.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-197) and index.

ISBN:

9780814210666

081421066X

9780814291436

0814291430

OCLC:

122313402