New Genres, New Explorations of Womanhood: Travel Writers, Journalists, and Working Women

MÓNICA SZURMUK; CLAUDIA TORRE

The Cambridge History of Latin American Women's Literature

Cambridge University Press

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2015; p. 102 - 116

In this chapter, we examine turn of the century writing by women in Latin America in order to put forth the argument that while they were exceptions within the general population, they were also part of a hemispheric modernizing movement. The consolidation of national states at the end of the nineteenth century, and the accompanying modernization and industrialization, required the massive entry of women into the workforce and into the machines of the state.Bourgeois women had been carving a space for themselves in the lettered world since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and by the late 1880s dozens of them were publishing books and journals. Working-class, lower middle-class, and immigrant women became literate and entered writing as part of their involvement in politics, trade unions, and education. They turned into key agents in the expansion of the reading public through teaching, editing, and writing. And they also became wage earners in record numbers. Authors treated include Luisa Capetillo, Juana Manuela Gorriti, Dolores Jiménez y Muro, Eduarda Mansilla, Juana Manso, Alfonsina Storni, Flora Tristán, Laureana Wright, and Adela Zamudio,