Birds of Passage: Five Englishwomen in Search of America

Hundreds of British visitors to America in the nineteenth century wrote accounts of their travels. Most male travellers devoted their books to some particular topic reflecting their own background, from exhaustive studies of prisons to the quality of sermons. Women writers tended both to see the broader picture and to be particularly concerned with daily life rather than with institutions. They wrote about manners, food, servants and children - precisely the topics that fascinate us most today.
The five women whose colourful stories are told here cover all aspects of experience: Rebecca Burlend dictated a moving account of life on the frontier; the controversial feminist Fanny Wright campaigned against slavery, marriage, religion and capitalism; Fanny Trollope wrote an extremely critical account which remains one of the best-known books on America; Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley described the country in glowing terms and predicted its future as a world power; Catherine Hopley became a governess on a slave plantation and observed the tragic coming of the civil war.