Women on the Move:

an exhibition of travel books. 3 September to 23 December 2024, Thomas Fisher Library, Toronto.

Welcome to Women on the Move

This digital map exhibit features a small selection of the items on display as part of the Fisher Library Exhibition Women On the Move: An Exhibition of Travel Books, held at the Fisher Library in Toronto from 3 September to 23 December 2024. Any questions or comments about this exhibition can be directed to fisher.library@utoronto.ca

Isabella Bird in Japan

Isabella Bird (1831-1904) visited Japan at a time when it was still quite restricted to outsiders. She had many encounters with the Indigenous Ainu people at a time when they were being assimilated into Japanese society.

'With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple'

Susanna Rijnhart (1868-1908) was a physician and Protestant missionary who traveled to Tibet with her husband to do missionary and aid work.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's 'Sunny Memories'

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, wrote three travel memoirs, including this one describing a trip to Scotland.

Vagabond's Wanderings in North Africa

A scrapbook of sketches, photos, and other ephemera created by two women known only as 'Guerrie' and 'Peggy' on their 1927-28 journey through Algeria and Tunisia

The Cruise of the 'Janet Nichol'

Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson (1840–1914) kept a journal of the unplanned, convalescent journey from Sydney through the South Sea Islands and back again that she took with her husband, author Robert Louis Stevenson in 1890. Twenty years later, just before her death, she revised these journals for publication.

Anglo-Indian diary

Caroline Louisa Lock (1837-1913) was in India with her husband, a Lieutenant with the 82nd regiment. Her diaries reflect a full social calendar in Lahore, and detail daily temperatures as well as personal tragedies

Mary Williamson and the Maharana of Udaipur

In 1967 Mary Williamson travelled ten thousand miles overland by bus from London to Mumbai with other adventurous travellers on the ‘Indiaman.’ Towards the end of her journey she found herself the guest of the Maharana of Udaipur, and is pictured riding on his elephant.

Eastern Pilgrims

The author, Agnes Smith, her twin sister, Margaret, and their tutor, Grace Blyth set out on a journey to the Holy Land in August 1868. Between them, they knew more than twelve languages, and took on the journey unaccompanied despite skepticism among their acquaintances.

Travel album of Kashmir and Northern India

This evocative album of silver gelatin photographs, botanical specimens, and skilfully executed watercolours was assembled by an unknown young female traveller some time around 1896.

Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz

Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz (1648-1695) assembled a monumental library of four thousand books through an international network of sources. Although she never travelled outside central Mexico, she wrote a large corpus of religious and secular works, some of which travelled for her to printing presses in Mexico City, Barcelona, Seville, Zaragoza, Valencia, Lisbon, and Madrid

Valentina Quintero

Valentina Quintero is a journalist, travel writer, and long-time advocate for sustainable tourism in Venezuela. The first edition of La guía sold out in three months in 1996.

Illustrated Travel Journal from Madagascar

Marguerite Marie Géraud (1879-1969), an exhibiting artist and wife of a colonial engineer and administrator, travelled to Africa, Southeast Asia, Scandinavia, the United States, Tahiti, and more. She wrote, painted, and collected photographs in hand-bound journals she decorated to reflect the countries visited.

Miss Wilkinson

Lillian M. Wilkinson was in Cairo attending the first and second Cairo Conferences in November and December of 1943. She collected military ephemera in this scrapbook, but nothing that would give away what her actual job was, as it was an Official Secret.

Journal of a Residence in Chile

On 21 September 1821, Maria Graham arrived in Pernambuco on her way to Valparaíso. In Chile, Graham recounts nearby trips, describes meetings with important political figures of the time, and even documents a major earthquake in Valparaíso at the end of 1822.

Crossing the Indian Alps

While her husband was stationed in Darjeeling, Elizabeth Sarah Mazuchelli (1832-1914) made many excursions to paint. The illustration of her in a palanquin is based on her own painting.

Ada Blackjack on Wrangel Island

Ada Blackjack was an Iñupiat woman who accompanied an expedition to attempt to claim Wrangel Island for Canada. Food shortages and illness divided the group, and after a long period of learning how to survive in the wilderness alone, she was rescued along with the expedition's cat Vic.

Unprotected Females on the move

The author Emily Lowe (-1882) and her mother travelled unaccompanied, and wanted to climb Mt. Etna shocking Italian locals.

El herbolario migrante (Migrant Herbalism)

This community artists’ book was created by visual artist, educator, and cultural organizer Cinthya Santos-Briones, in collaboration with migrant women from Latin America to the United States. It preserves a collection of stories and poems on the healing qualities and descriptions of plants written and illustrated on fabric and crochet by migrant women participating in workshops led by the artist in New York City between 2019 and 2023.

A Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople

Baroness Elizabeth Craven (1750–1828) lived a scandalous life which saw her married twice and spending years travelling unaccompanied. Her travel accounts take the form of letters addressed to her ‘brother’ Alexander, and in them she describes a trip across Europe and through Crimea to Constantinople.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) eloped at age twenty-three with Edward Wortley Montagu, who in 1716 was sent by the British Parliament to negotiate an end to the Austro-Turkish War. She was the first English woman to describe Turkey, and she wrote in a genre that had until then be dominated by male writers.

Lorena Ramírez

In 2017, Lorena Ramírez became a global news story when she won two difficult mountain ultramarathons in Mexico wearing traditional sandals and clothing. In this large linocut print, Lorena Ramírez emerges running from urban walls as one of the eighteen pieces in the series Los nadies (or ‘Nobodies’) created in Oaxaca by members of the Colectivo Subterráneos.

A Girl in the Karpathians

Scotswoman Ménie Muriel Dowie journeyed through the eastern Carpathian Mountains, which stretch southward through western parts of Ukraine, up to the border of Romania, in 1890. She went from village to village, climbed hills, crossed rivers, and slept in the open air. The intrepid twenty-three-year-old traveled sensationally alone and on horseback, outfitting herself in men’s attire, bidding adieu ‘to the trappings of an average woman.’

The Amherst Eclipse Expedition

Mabel Loomis Todd (1856–1932) is best known for editing the posthumously published poetry and letters of Emily Dickinson. She authored novels and books about her astronomical expeditions with her husband, astronomer and Amherst professor David Peck Todd. One of these expeditions was their trip on board the schooner-yacht Coronet as part of the 1896 Amherst Eclipse Expedition to Hokkaido, Japan.

South African Memories

In 1899, Sarah Isabella Augusta Wilson (1865–1929) was recruited by the Daily Mail to cover the Second Boer War. She thus became one of the first woman war correspondents and recorded the events from a woman’s point of view. Charged with being a spy, the Boer forces held her as a prisoner of war. After being released, she recorded life under siege with self-possession and humour.

South African Memories

In 1899, Sarah Isabella Augusta Wilson (1865–1929) was recruited by the Daily Mail to cover the Second Boer War. She thus became one of the first woman war correspondents and recorded the events from a woman’s point of view. Charged with being a spy, the Boer forces held her as a prisoner of war. After being released, she recorded life under siege with self-possession and humour.

Six Months in Red Russia

Louise Bryant (1885–1936) was an accredited foreign correspondent for the Bell Syndicate and interviewed Alex Kerensky, met with Lenin, spent time with Leon Trotsky, and paid especial attention to the women revolutionaries. In her introduction, she asked for her readers’ indulgence, reminding them to keep ‘an open mind’ and to set aside their American prejudice against Russia.

Maria Sibylla Merian's Suriname

Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 1647 – 13 January 1717) On 18 June 1701, the German-born naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian and her daughter, Dorothea Maria Graff (1678–1743), sailed back to Europe following a two-year residence in Suriname. Merian introduced an ‘ecological vision’ in her depictions of insects and their symbiotic relationship to food plants, which she observed ‘from life’ during an unprecedented scientific expedition by a European woman in the Americas