From Beacon Hill to the Crystal Palace: The 1851 Travel Diary of a Working-Class Woman

Because prior studies of American women’s travel writing have focused exclusively on middle-class and wealthy travelers, it has been difficult to assess the genre and its participants in a holistic fashion. One of the very few surviving working-class travel diaries, Lorenza Stevens Berbineau’s account provides readers with a unique perspective of a domestic servant in the wealthy Lowell family in Boston. Staying in luxurious hotels and caring for her young charge Eddie during her six-month gr…