Exploring Educational Biography Through the Travel Narrative: Flora White’s Letters From Southern Africa, 1885-87

• In Event: Biographical Sketches of Visionary and Transformative Educators

Abstract

This paper explores the potential for educational biographers to gain insight into their female subjects by utilizing the scholarship of travel literature. The author makes the case through the correspondence of Flora White (1860-1948), a teacher from western Massachusetts who lived in southern Africa where she taught English to the sons of Dutch, English, and French Huguenot settlers. Unlike many female travel narratives in which the author experiences a loosening of gender restrictions, White's letters show she experienced more gender restrictions than she had known at home. Six themes are explored: Motives for Travel, the Journey, Interacting with the Other, Gender Identity, Return Home, and Change/Growth as a Result of Travel.

Author

• Linda C. Morice, Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville