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Lilian Leland (16 October 1857–4 April 1934)[1][2] was a writer and traveller, who became well known for her 60,000 mile solo journey around the world.
Life[edit]
Rachel Lilian Leland[3] was born in New York on 16 October 1857, the daughter of Mary and Theron Leland.[4] Theron Leland was a writer, lecturer, and freethinker, who was secretary of the Liberal League.[4] He was also one of the first phonographic reporters in America.[4][3] Mary A. Leland was among the first American women to study medicine, becoming a lecturer in anatomy as early as 1852.[4]
Lilian Leland was first taught by her father, and then attended school in New York.[4] Her desire to travel came from reading The Merchant of Venice and a book about the Indian Archipelago, entitled the The Prison of Weltevreden.[4]
At the age of 25, Leland embarked upon a solo journey of nearly sixty thousand miles, which lasted for nearly two years.[4][5] The only other woman recorded to have taken a comparable journey alone at that time was Ida Pfeiffer.[4] Leland subsequently published Travelling Alone: A Woman's Journey Round the World (1890) compiled from letters she wrote on the way.[4][6]
Leland married H. L. Andrews, the son of Stephen Pearl Andrews, abolitionist and freethinker.[7]
Samuel Porter Putnam described her as "Always pleasant and cheerful in appearance, and never, under any circumstances, uttering a complaint, she is, at the same time, possessed of a quiet determination that carries her smilingly and safely over all difficulties."[4]
Leland died in Queens, New York on 4 April 1934 from pneumonia.[2]
References[edit]
- ^ Gaylor, Annie Laurie (1997). Women without superstition : "no gods--no masters" : the collected writings of women freethinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Internet Archive. Madison, Wis. : Freedom From Religion Foundation. ISBN 978-1-877733-09-3.
- ^ a b "New York City Death Certificates: Rachel H Andrews [Rachel H Leland]". Ancestry. New York City, New York: New York City Department of Records & Information Services. 1934.
- ^ a b "Stephen Pearl Andrews Collection | New York Heritage". nyheritage.org. Retrieved 2023-12-15.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Putnam, Samuel Porter (1894). 400 Years of Freethought. University of California Libraries. New York: The Truth Seeker Company.
- ^ Leland, Lilian (1890). Traveling alone. A woman's journey around the world. The Library of Congress. New York, The American News Company.
- ^ Rawson, Hugh; Miner, Margaret, eds. (2006). The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations (2nd ed.). New York Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516823-5.
- ^ Seering, Lauryn. "Lilian Leland - Freedom From Religion Foundation". ffrf.org. Retrieved 2023-12-14.