Julia Kuehn in China of the Tourists: Women and the Grand Tour of the
Middle Kingdom explained how the opportunity of traveling to China became
available for Victorian women. Kuehn stated “through the existence of a British stronghold in China it became possible for “[Victorian women] to explore the country and venture into areas hitherto unfamiliar to Westerners.”28 Lots of the
28 Julia Kuehn,“China of the Tourists: Women and the Grand Tour of the Middle Kingdom.＂
in Asian Crossings: Travel Writing on China, Japan and Southeast Asia. (ed.)Steve Clark, Paul Smethurst. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), 115
Victorian women travelers who had visited China were either missionary, or family of diplomats, soldiers, and merchants.
Kuehn employed the data of Chadwyck-Healey’s bibliography of
“Nineteenth-Century Books on China” and found that
“of the 733 books on China published in the (long) nineteenth century, only about ten percent (categorized as ‘Geography as they map and describe the country’) were travelogues…The large bulk of works on China is by (British) men and about
‘Politics and government’, ‘Economics and commerce’,
‘Anthropology and sociology’, ‘History of China’, ‘Religion and philosophy’, and ‘Literature and art’… there are fewer than twenty women writers mentioned in the bibliography…but it is noteworthy that their (travel) writings emerge chiefly from around 1880 when their male counterparts focused visibly on
socio-political and economic questions concerning China.”29
Chadwyck-Healey’s data and Kuehn’s analysis noticed the fact that only a few women travel writers ever published their writings on the topic of China.
The male-female author ratio was so great that it was almost 36:1. For every thirty-six books, only one was written by woman. Nicholas Clifford in: A Truthful
Impression of the Country: British and American Travel Writing in China
1880-1949
30 also made a similar observation. The difference (books on China that were written by different genders) was caused by the fact that compared to men, there were less English women travelers in China.Another similar result was found in the bibliography from One Artificial Paradise, Two Cultures of Opium Consumption : Comparative Study of the
29 Ibid. 113-114
30 Nicholas Clifford, A Truthful Impression of the Country: British and American Travel Writing in China 1880-1949. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), ⅹⅴ-ⅹⅶ.
19th Century Europe and the Late Imperial China31 project. There were about four hundreds and thirty books regarding the theme of China including travel journals that were published in English. Among the English language books, there were fifteen female authors which are the following: Jessie A.
Ackermann, Isabella Lucy Bird, Mary Isabella Bryson, Julia Corner, Gretchen Mae Fitkin, Constance Gordon-Cumming, Emily Hahn, Mrs. Hervey, Mrs.
Thomas Francis Hughes, Alicia Helen Neva Bewicke Little, Mrs. D.D Muter, Helen Sanford Coan Nevius, Ida Pfeiffer, Eliza Ramsay, Emile Rocher, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, and Martha Noyes Williams. Most of these female writers had only published one book, Isabella Lucy Bird, Mrs. Archibald Little, and Constance Gordon-Cumming were the more prolific authors. They all published at least three books on the topic of China.
Kuehn used Isabella Lucy Bird and Constance Gordon Cumming to categorize Victorian women travelers to China into two types, “[the] traveler who travels accompanied with dangers and discomfort; [the] tourist who travels with entertainment, comfort, and relaxation.”32 Isabella Lucy Bird was looking for unbeaten tracks. Her destinations were Tibet and the upper part of the Yangtze River where the inhabitants were unfamiliar with European
communities. Bird often traveled with Chinese people. Constance
Gordon-Cumming traveled to Peking, Shanghai, Canton, and Hong Kong where there were a substantial amount of European communities. In comparison with Bird’s experience, Cumming’s means of travel and
31 One Artificial Paradise, Two Cultures of Opium Consumption : Comparative Study of the 19th Century Europe and the Late Imperial China is a project that was founded by National Science Council in 2005 and 2006. This project was lead by Professor Der-Liang, Chiu and one of its contributions was to create an bibliography of nineteenth-century’s westerners’
travel writings on China.
32 Kuehn, “China of the Tourists” 116-117.
companions were a lot different.
Kuehn neglected the third type of Victorian women travelers in
China—long-time residents such as Mrs. Archibald Little. Long-time residents combined the attributes of both traveler and tourist, she would travel to more desolate areas while maintaining regular residence at open port cities. Mrs.
Little had traveled to most parts of China and was also active among the European community at Shanghai, Peking, Hankow, and Chungking.
Among many Victorian women travel writers in China, Mrs. Archibald Little possessed three important qualities that set her apart from other women travelers and became the subject in this thesis. First, most Victorian women travelers did not have the opportunities and the will to associate, mingle, and socialize with Chinese locals including Chinese women. In the case of
Constance Gordon Cumming, Cumming often avoided direct contact with Chinese locals.33 In fact, most of the English diplomats or merchants’ wives often engaged more in hosting parties34. Therefore the only direct contact they might have was to communicate with their Chinese servants, cooks, and maids.35 However, due to Mrs. Archibald Little’s vigorous effort for the Unbinding Foot Movement, it had created many opportunities and opened many doors for her. For instance, she had been invited to many different dinner parties that were hosted by Chinese women in order to discuss girls/women situations, life conditions and education36.
Secondly, Mrs. Archibald Little had published ten books that were related to China and countless articles related to China. Such a great deal of writing
33 Ibid.120
34 In A.W.S.Wingate’s One Chevalier in China, had a lot of detailized description about the British women’ everyday lifes in China.
35 Kuehn, “China of the Tourists” 120
36 Mrs. Archibald Litte, Intimate China. 551-553
provided researchers with rich and vivid descriptions of Mrs. Little’s state of mind during her twenty years in China. Last but not least of the reasons is Mrs.
Archibald Little’s personality. Mrs. Archibald Little believed that a healthy body would bring a healthy state of mind. Hence, she often promoted the importance of exercise, especially of walking. In nineteenth-century China, Chinese
women were obligated to stay at home and could not to be seen on the street.
With this social convention, it would have been dangerous for Western women to walk on the street by themselves;37 therefore they often traveled China in sedan-chairs with the curtain down38. Nevertheless, Mrs. Archibald Little found her own way to mingle with the locals and made them accustomed to her presence.39
37 Mrs. Archibald Litte, Intimate China,. 81-82 .
38 In Mrs. Thomas Francis Hughes’ Among the Sons of Han : Notes of a Six Years’
Residence in Various Parts of China and Formosa , there were six different sources through out the book describing her sedan chair experience. Ida Pfeiffer inA Woman’s Journey Round the World: From Vienna to Brazil, Chili, Tahiti, China, Hindostan, Persia and Asia Minor had described her sedan chair experience in China. Mrs. D.D. Muter also mentioned how she traveled through China on the sedan chair in Travels and adventures of an officer's wife in India, China, and New Zealand. Also see, Jessie A, Ackermann, The World Through A Woman’s Eyes. 134-135.
39 Mrs. Archibald Litte, Intimate China, 82.