"Would you think they could abduct me from here? —Ann Eliza Young

It is a curious fact of history that 1873—the year during which Ulysses S. Grant began his second term as President of the United States, financial panic bankrupted 5,000 businesses, yellow fever decimated the South, William "Boss" Tweed was convicted of fraud, and the cable car was introduced to San Francisco—was also the year in which a majority of Americans were fascinated, agitated, or otherwise preoccupied with the subject of life in a harem. For this strange absorption, two young ladies were largely responsible—one being a woman born in Wales who had spent five years in a Siamese harem [Anna H. Leonowens], and the other being a woman born in Illinois who had spent four years in a United States harem. [Ann Eliza Young]