Women and Print Culture: A Critical Exploration of the Archives of the Border Region of Mexico and the United States (Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage)

Writers, editors, activists and prostitutes. Women along the US-Mexico border served in many more capacities than simply wives and mothers, though those were their primary roles. Historically, religion was the link between women and the written word. Mexican women, particularly those from the privileged classes, had access to secular reading beginning in the 1800s. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several periodicals dedicated to the education of the “fairer sex” emerged. Though the male voice initially predominated, women began contributing poetry and essays to various publications and eventually became editors of their own magazines and newspapers. This collection of ten essays, based on the examination of publications from the US-Mexico region between 1850-1950, explores the role of women in print culture, leading to a better understanding of women in the history of Mexican border life. The scholars who researched the archival collections of newspapers and magazines write about a variety of topics, including the participation of women in war, the belief females were inferior and even the cultural history of prostitutes.