This ambitious volume shows how nineteenth-century Spanish American writers used the discourses of modernity to envision the place of women at all levels of social and even political life in the modern, utopian nation. Looking at texts ranging from novels and essays to newspaper articles and advertisements, and with special attention to public and private space, domesticity, education, technology, and work, Skinner identifies gender as a central concern at every level of society.

Lee Skinner is professor of Spanish at Claremont McKenna College. She is the author of History Lessons: Refiguring the Nineteenth-Century Historical Novel in Spanish America.