Another important factor in the rush to Europe was the stature that the continent occupied in the popular imagination: "Until very late in the century the United States was widely believed to lack almost every element that made up what Henry James called 'the denser, richer, warmer European spectacle'" (Stowe, p. 5). It became increasingly important for those people in America who saw themselves as fashionable to obtain the European cultural benefits (such as art, music, language, and architecture) that would help define them as the privileged class in their own country. Significant numbers of American women were also traveling abroad, women perhaps not unlike Daisy Miller and her mother, wives and daughters of wealthy businessmen who journeyed to Europe to see the sights, to buy goods, and to be seen by other rich Americans. This yearning to become "European" was in conflict with the views held by leading Americans (like Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain) who urged their compatriots to create an indigenous, nonderivative cultural base.
Women in nineteenth-century America. Assessing the social position of American women in James's day is complicated. On one hand, they generally were better educated and enjoyed greater social freedoms than their European counterparts.
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