Naomi Z. Sofer - "Carry[ing] a Yankee Girl to Glory": Redefining Female Authorship in the Postbellum United States - American Literature 75:1 American Literature 75.1 (2003) 31-60 "Carry[ing] a Yankee Girl to Glory": Redefining Female Authorship in the Postbellum United States Naomi Z. Sofer Hurrah! My story was accepted. . . . People seem to think it is a great thing to get into the "Atlantic," but I've not been pegging away all these years in vain, and may yet have books and publishers and a fortune of my own. —Louisa May Alcott, Journals, 1859 I . . . shared the general awe of [the Atlantic] . . . and, having possibly, more than my share of personal pride, did not very early venture to intrude my little risk upon that fearful lottery. . . . . I have yet to learn that . . . [my first Atlantic story] attracted any attention from anybody more disinterested than those few friends of the sort who, in such cases, are wont to inquire, in tones more freighted with wonder than admiration: "What! Has she got into the Atlantic?" —Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Chapters from a Life, 1896 Despite their pleasure at having published in the most prestigious literary magazine of the day, both Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps express, in the epigraphs above, ambivalence toward their achievement. Alcott implies that people's excitement at her appearance in the Atlantic Monthly is misplaced, since this event is not a guarantee of success but merely one high...