by Andrea Beiche and Elya Wojciechowski
16.05.2022
Under the alias “A Lady Of New York”, the female author Sarah Rogers Haight born in 1808 published her first travel report, called: “Letters from the Old World” in 1840. After finishing her education at the best girls’ school in New York, the young lady married the travel affinitive New Yorker Richard K. Haights, whom she joined later on his travels. Inspired by his tales, she began writing her own adventures down. We will take a closer look now at her already mentioned first story. Together with her husband, she started her journey all the way from New England to Odessa and from there on taking a ship down to the Old World, speaking of north african countires, such as egypt. Their adventure already has a rough start with the plague at Odessa leading to a ship quarantine on their way to turkey. In further detail, Mrs. Haights describes this and many other events of her trip in the 23 letters of her book, as well as her journey back home. She captures her own thoughts, point of view and experiences in the East. Reading the report, you get an insight of an american women in the 19th century, her beliefs, ideology and opinion on the world.
Moving on, I will give you a brief historical background of New England and north africa’s travel conditions at Sarah Haight’s lifetime. “By 1830 the harbors (of New England) were yielding in importance to the waterfalls. Shipping and commerce were giving way to manufacturing, and the rural towns of New England, which had been the foundations of her society and culture, were passing into a decline as the growing families moved to the manufacturing towns, to the cities, or to the West.” (Turner) By 1840, “were already more than 3,000 miles of track in the United States, including more than 400 miles in New England. Railroads came to dominate overland transportation so completely that a half century after 1830 it had been largely forgotten that the roads, which then carried mostly local traffic, once had been important arteries of commerce.” (Parks)
In the Old World, as Sarah Haights would say, on the other hand, “The French capture of Algiers in 1830, followed by the Ottoman reoccupation of Tripoli in 1835, rudely interrupted the attempts of North Africa’s rulers to follow the example of Muḥammad ʿAlī, the pasha of Egypt, and increase their power along European lines. Of the four powers in North Africa at the beginning of the 19th century, only Tunis and Morocco survived as independent states into the second half of the century to encounter the heavy pressures that Europe then brought to bear on the region for free trade and legal reform, measures originally leveled against the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.” (Brett)
HYPOTHESIS
Sarah Rogers Haight gets deeply connected with her own beliefs and faces her own former arrogance about traveling to Egypt S. 273-278
What effect does traveling to one of the countries with the most well known ancient history do to a woman of the new world?
Sarah Rogers Haight was a woman of the New World. She has prepared herself months in advance of her departure to sail to the countries of the old world. Even though very effectively researching the history of ancient Egypt (p. 273) she did not at the time of her travel feel prepared for what she witnessed. Throughout the passages from page 273 to 278 Sarah Haight reflects on her personal thoughts she had before coming along on this traveling journey. She herself felt like she was naive, as a woman who grew up in the country with the most growth at the time, with all the ideological and philosophical aspects of femininity and her education. She describes how incredible it is to travel to Egypt as it is so ancient in comparison to the United States that first when she read books in her preparation she thought the pictures as well as the descriptions were exaggerated (p. 273). Not only was Sarah Haight shocked by all the murals and monuments from the times of the Pharaohs but also did she associate a big part of her own life with her travel to Egypt, the bible and Christianity. In the moment she talks about Moses freeing the folk who went to the promised land she takes onto something she herself believes in and puts a lot of faith in. SHe herself is very opinionated which is rare for women in her time as she also is one of the earliest female writers who published their work. Piety is a big part of the good American Housewife in the midst of the 19th century so she was abashed by the surroundings she found yet it did not stop her from having a lot to say about the arrogance of the average traveler and feel pitiful towards them (p. 275). With what she found Haight also criticized how some authors have tried to connect biblical stories to ancient egyptian mythology, defending her beliefs “ he pretends to prove, by the astrological map of the celestial sphere, that the whole history of the fall of man a great mediator, a final judge, a future savior “ (p. 277).
The author very much respects the history of Egypt saying Greece sprung from it and Rome tried to merely imitate Egypts grace in its days (p. 276). The way she portrays her sights and adventures is a lush selection of detailed descriptions of histories or places. ‘’Egypt, sounded by the victorious Amru over the Arabian hills, wonderful and extraordinary as it is in itself, must only be considered as the mere pivot on which turns the whole circle of historical events, from the erection of the first altar on the Mount of Ararat, to the last recorded incident on the page of history.“ (p. 275). Haight feels not only heavily connected but finds her heritage or even the heritage of a lot of humanity in there from over seventeen thousand years ago as some sites date back. Not only is she thinking ahead of her time but also seems to have a more natural effect from the traveling which brightens her horizon but does not fully detach her from her true womanhood protestant christian upbringing.
The old world is imprinting heritage history and understanding to the woman of the new world of growth, profit and surplus.