Elizabeth Sinkler Coxe's Tales from the Grand Tour, 1890-1910

Preface

xiii Preface Elizabeth Allen Sinkler Coxe lived successfully between North and South during the post–Civil War period, when conflict and animosity still divided the nation. Lizzie, as she was called, was a hybrid, born in 1843 at Belvidere Plantation in Eutawville, South Carolina, but her mother, Emily Wharton Sinkler, and her mother’s parents, the Whartons, were from Philadelphia. She overcame the emotional trauma of the Civil War. Despite growing up in antebellum South Carolina, she married a Union army major from Philadelphia and moved with him to coal-mining country in Drifton, Pennsylvania. Lizzie had been married only three years when her thirtyyear -old husband, Charles Brinton Coxe, died in Egypt on January 3, 1873, leaving her a widow at the age of twenty-nine with a young son, Eckley Brinton Coxe Jr. Lizzie showed poise, determination, and courage in the face of this adversity. She moved vigorously into a new phase of her life, one centered on Drifton, Philadelphia, and the world. She and her son, Eckley Jr., built a magnificent house in Drifton and became active members of this tiny coal town that was the home of her Coxe in-laws. She immersed herself in the cultural world of Philadelphia, taking particular interest in music and the archaeological works of the University of Pennsylvania . She fulfilled a lifelong passion for exploration, spending almost five months of each year traveling across Europe and Asia. The end of the nineteenth century was the period of great power hegemony , when France, England, and Germany developed protectorates from Egypt and the Sudan to Algeria. Lizzie and her son, Eckley, traveled through the vast reaches of this stately Old World empire, from Madeira to Khartum . She was undeterred by the exigencies of steamships, trains, horses, buggies, heat, long skirts, and the other difficulties of travel. Lizzie’s other great passions were her son and her extended family. She became the surrogate mother for all her young Southern nieces and xiv Preface nephews. She was determined that they not be left behind in a rural, undereducated South, increasingly mired in poverty and racial conflict. She always invited several of these nieces along on her travels, making sure that they met the eligible and attractive young of Europe. These wonderful excursions became a legend in the Sinkler family, with many tales of adventurous trips to Egypt, Turkey, France, Italy, and Greece. Lizzie traveled in style, staying in elegant hotels and carrying her personal servants on each trip. Despite such luxuries, conditions were often primitive, and explorations were made on donkey, on camel, and on foot. Lizzie was a devoted and adoring mother. Her son was her constant companion, and his interests became her interests. Lizzie was my great-grandaunt. I grew up hearing stories from my greataunts and my grandmother of their wonderful excursions abroad before the Old World order was changed irretrievably by the physical and cultural destruction of World War I. I learned of Lizzie’s youth through my research on her mother, Emily Wharton Sinkler. Lizzie’s young life and exploits are an intimate part of both An Antebellum Plantation Household and Between North and South, my two earlier works.1 Lizzie grew up in a world where letter writing was integral to communication . Women spent a part of every day writing letters to keep far-flung family and friends together. In 1998 I became the owner of Lizzie’s journals describing her journeys abroad. She had apparently written these accounts between 1916 and 1919. They are in typed format with her handwritten corrections. In 1999 I was given a trove of Lizzie’s letters with firsthand accounts of her excursions. In addition, in 1912 Lizzie had privately published Memories of a South Carolina Plantation during the War. It was based on a diary she kept at Belvidere during the Civil War. These various primary documents provide firsthand accounts of American Victorian life in the late nineteenth century. Lizzie’s story is imbued with qualities that are still of value today. She had a sense of adventure. She was open to a world of new cultures and different places. She thrilled to 1. Anne Sinkler Whaley LeClercq, An Antebellum Plantation Household, Including the South Carolina Low Country Receipts and Remedies of Emily Wharton Sinkler (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996). Between North and South: The Letters of Emily Wharton Sinkler, 1842–1865 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001). [18.119.132.223] Project...