ABSTRACT
The entry of American women into the royal court and high society of Britain after the American Civil War has been referred to by contemporaries and biographers alike as an ‘invasion’. Certainly the number of women travelling across the Atlantic was unprecedented. The hazards and discomforts of long-distance travel, let alone ocean crossings, had hitherto discouraged women of the middle and upper classes from embarking on long journeys. But the term ‘invasion’ referred to more than the sudden arrival of large numbers of American women; it signified a sense of intrusion and disruption. The influx of wealthy Americans of allegedly plutocratic backgrounds threatened to raise the standard of expenditure within smart society and to intensify competition in the aristocratic marriage market. It is possible to identify two reactions evoked by the introduction of American women into the elite circles of the British capital: admiration for their adventurous and inquisitive spirit, and fear for the consequences of their social success.
