Frances Trollope travelled to the U.S. with her son Henry, "having been partly instigated by the social and communistic ideas of a lady whom I well remember, a certain Miss Wright, who was, I think, the first of the American female lecturers" (Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography). She briefly stayed at the Nashoba Commune, a utopian settlement for ex-slaves set up by Frances Wright in Tennessee, but was dismayed by the primitive conditions.
It had been only 15 years since the United Kingdom was at war with the United States and the earlier American Revolutionary War was still remembered. Trollope's own views on government contrasted with American-style republicanism. According to Katherine Moore, while in America, Trollope was unhappy as a result of financial and marital difficulties.
