ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century, technological progress made traveling more accessible to bourgeois women and made publishing a possibility. The genre of travel writing symbolizes women's physical and intellectual freedom. This chapter shows how Florence Dixie, Eduarda Mansilla, and Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz are pioneer women who made the genre of travel writing a space of their own. Even if their husbands chose the destination of their travels, they manipulated the location to suit their interests as writers. They saw, observed, reflected, and wrote texts that moved beyond their husbands' careers and added different perspectives to the genre of travel writing. The three traveling women writers expressed their independence and intellect through the genre of travel narratives. Despite their different ethnicities and nationalities, the three authors shared a privileged bourgeois identity and were aware of Imperialist motives. They may not fit the contemporary definition of feminists, but they challenged patriarchy while defending women's right to vote, freedom, and equal education.
