May Alcott Nieriker was much more than a very good artist. As I have sought to demonstrate, her words, especially as encountered in her travel writings, sought to inspire, entertain, critique, instruct, and advise. They did this through an unusual and innovative blend of advice, adventure, art criticism, and social commentary content that was woven into her travel experiences, thereby showing the range of content possible in this popular genre. Yet to some extent that camouflage was also necessary in order to make her voice as a middle-class American woman artist heard, especially given her unorthodox goal of encouraging other young women like herself to similarly leave America on their own in order to find fulfillment and a greater chance of success as a professional fine artist. Alcott Nieriker's voice was passionate and audacious; yet to what extent was she “heard” in her own time, or thereafter? What impact, if any, did she have on the art world, and in the lives of American women artists?

Unfortunately determining historical causality is fraught with challenges, and often unknowable with absolute certainty, but we can still seek to accumulate evidence that might provide some indication of the possible influence of Alcott Nieriker's writings. Thus, as a means of both concluding this study and ideally inspiring future research into her ideas and influence, the last section of this book will consider such central questions: To what extent were May Alcott Nieriker's travel writings known, and potentially emulated, in the late nineteenth century? And, were there any ways in which they might have been impactful for American women artists studying abroad in that period, especially in regard to improving the discriminatory conditions that Alcott Nieriker had publicly confronted?

I Assessing the Notoriety and Possible Influence of Alcott Nieriker's Travel Writings

Prior to authoring the Studying Art Abroad guidebook, Alcott Nieriker's travel writings were published in a regional newspaper, the Boston Daily Evening Transcript, and thus ascertaining their impact is challenging. However, we do have evidence that her articles about the London art scene were positively received and noticed.