In 1889, two rival newspapers sponsored around-the-world trips by female journalists. The impetus for the race was the widespread popularity of Jules Verne’s 1873 novel Around the World in 80 Days, but the use of two women, one southern and one northern, to test the feasibility of such a trip indicated the growing prominence of female members of the press in late nineteenth-century America. By the 1880s, enough female journalists had made their careers and reputations that the prospect of two women traveling alone around the world sparked little moral indignation.

One of the travelers was Elizabeth Bisland, venturing west under the auspices of the Cosmopolitan. Born on a plantation in Louisiana in 1863, Bisland had forged a regional reputation through her contributions to local newspapers, including the New Orleans Times-Democrat, for which she later became literary editor. Like many southern women journalists in the postwar period, Bisland left her native region for a time to seek greater renown in New York, and soon she was hired as the literary editor of the Cosmopolitan. The notion of a race around the world against Nellie Bly, who ventured eastward for the New York World, proved a success as both women relayed their experiences to their home papers. Although Bly bested Bisland by a few days, both completed their trips in less than the eighty days it took Phileas Fogg, and Bisland published an account of her adventure in A Flying Trip Around the World.