The article examines the creation of a journalistic network between Mexico and Spain by women writers in the second half of the nineteenth-century. I argue that journalistic aesthetics and feminine didacticism were shared and stimulated through editorial relationships on both sides of the Atlantic. This editorial dialogue created a presence for Spanish women writers in the Mexican public sphere and opened up a debate regarding the construction of historical discourse. The illustrated feminine journal became a platform for experimentation with cultural categories and questioned the uni-directionality of historical discourse. It raises a debate regarding the compartmentalization of national histories and created a space in which culture was made intelligible for both sides of the Atlantic –a space of cross-cultural literacy.
The study of the press is a tool to understand intellectual transatlantic networks and the formation of a transatlantic Republic of Letters.
