You can run a concordance search for a mode of transportation and then filter your results using female pronouns and possessives (she, her, hers) if you would like to examine the cultural restrictions placed on the mobility of girls and women.

The railway, for example, presented nineteenth- century women with new opportunities and new dangers in equal measure.

For the first time, they could travel on their
own over long distances without the need for a chaperone. But, (like their twenty-first century counterparts) they often felt unsafe or vulnerable on public transport.

Crowded trains meant that they could easily find themselves sharing a carriage with a group of male strangers, who could be rowdy or even predatory. What’s more, a woman who was being harassed could not quickly get away, as carriages were only accessible from a door at either end.

To counter these concerns, ladies-only carriages were
introduced in the latter half of the century. These carriages (which numbered over 1,000 by 1888) were usually located at the front or back of the train. Some women also took the precaution of dressing in a more conservative manner, adopting high necklines or long skirts.

See lines 10 and 11 of the concordance search below, where Miss Rosa Bud (from Charles Dickens’ Edwin Drood) is escorted to the train station under male protection; or line 8 where Lydia Gwilt (the shrewd anti-heroine of Wilkie Collins’ Armadale), remarks on the ‘rude men’ she has met while travelling alone on the railway. As she explains to her landlady, though she dresses ‘quietly’ her red ‘hair is so very remarkable’ – so to deter unwanted male attention she is accustomed to wearing a ‘thick veil’.

What can you ascertain from your results in terms of what it would have been like to travel — as a woman — in you chosen time?

Look for patterns that offer contextual insight. You might notice, for example, that the word airing collocates with the word carriage.

Carriage airings were a popular and socially acceptable way for women to see and be seen by society outside of one’s family. Though health was often cited as the reasoning behind such a journey, women also made an event of the enterprise itself, inviting friends, dressing up, and driving to a picturesque location.

Keep an eye out in your research for writing strategies crafted to bring specific modes of transport to life.

See, for example, Dickens’ descriptive railway panorama in Dombey and Son that utilises repetition, rhythmic punctuation, and cyclical syntax to evoke what it would have felt like to journey aboard a train for the first time.

“Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, through the fields, through the woods, through the corn, through the hay, through the chalk, through the mould, through the clay, through the rock [. . .] Through the hollow, on the height, by the heath, by the orchard, by the park, by the garden, over the canal, across the river, where the sheep are feeding, where the mill is going, where the barge is floating, where the dead are lying, where the factory is smoking, where the stream is running, where the village clusters, where the great cathedral rises, where the bleak moor lies, and the wild breeze smooths or ruffles it at its inconstant will.” – Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, Chapter 20.

You can note down what you have discovered in the downloadable handout provided and post your findings under #CLiCCreative, or by tagging us @CLiC_fiction on Twitter.

Bonus Writing Activity

Write a scene in which one of your characters is taken outside of their comfort zone while in transit. What is it about this journey that enables them to meaningfully interacts with the world around them? Along the way what do they learn about themselves, or another character? How does the journey itself inform this internal growth? Weave in what you have learnt in the previous research activity.

You can write your answers in the downloadable handout provided.

Why not post your findings under #CLiCCreative, or by tagging us @CLiC_fiction on Twitter?