An American Girl in England

My girlhood years are long past -- and so were those of the writer who inspired the title of this blog, Elizabeth Banks. Elizabeth was a journalist at a time when just a few women were beginning to make inroads in the world of newspapers. Born in New Jersey and raised in Wisconsin Elizabeth was frustrated by the lack of opportunities women journalists had in the United States, and so she decided to take her skills to London, where she knew no one. That was in 1892. She created an identity for herself as "the American Girl," this phrase conveying both her outsider status and the optimism of youth. She continued to write as "the American Girl" for years, well into middle age, as a matter of fact.

Middle-aged myself, though don't pin me down to an exact number, I like to think that I have retained some sense of excitement in discovering new places, re-discovering old favorites, and meeting new people. I also admire people who are not afraid to be different and who can make bold decisions. In my life as a scholar and teacher, I have written about less popular, even unknown individuals because they fascinated me. I started with the Southern American poet Sidney Lanier. (Who? Look him up!) and then I discovered Elizabeth Banks and a number of other 19th-century American women who decided to pursue their lives and careers in England.

I spent ten years doing research and writing about them, and the result was a book published in 2006 by the University Press of Florida, titled American Women in Gilded Age London: Expatraites Rediscovered. Shortly I am traveling to England again, this time to speak about my book, and you can follow along via this blog.