American Women in Gilded Age London: Expatriates Rediscovered

During the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, American women expatriates helped populate Britain’s literary, theatrical, and arts scenes. Varied in their motivation and talents, they were educated, nearly all moneyed, and distinctive for being American, which made them outsiders free from many of the social constraints that checked English women. Drawing on correspondence, reviews, and articles of the day, records from women’s clubs, and other documentary sources, Gabin pieces together the lives and careers of one such group of American women, living in London between 1870 and the end of WWI. It is a colony of fascinating characters well known in their day but more recently obscured, whose individual efforts and achievements nevertheless created more opportunities for future, less-privileged women. The group ranges from socialite Jennie Jerome Churchill (mother of Winston), to novelists Pearl Craigie and Gertrude Atherton, actresses Mary Anderson, Genevieve Ward, and Elizabeth Robins, and journalists Elizabeth Banks and Elizabeth Robins Pennell. Supporting figures include Boston poet Louise Chandler Moulton—who hosted a literary salon in her London home, actress and singer Edna May, artist Julie Heyneman, and Antoinette Sterling—a singer favored by Queen Victoria. Gabin sets the historical background of late 19th-century London, places the women within it, and then follows each one as she pursues her talents. In every case, the women make essential sacrifices in pursuit of their aims. Gabin enlivens each in straightforward narrative with ample selections from 19th-century sources.  While nearly all the works written by these women are out of print, Gabin provides an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary materials documenting this fascinating group of expatriates and their place in and influence upon turn-of-the-century London.