Most southern women writers, like those in the North, did not challenge traditional gender roles and wrote poetry and prose on subjects that were considered appropriately feminine topics. Women writers on these subjects, like Charleston’s Mary Elizabeth Lee and the Florida native Mary Edwards Bryan, were received warmly by the southern reading public. But women who became editors fashioned themselves as public figures with some authority and thus challenged traditional notions of separate spheres. As arbiters of taste and quality, these editors served a public function: They decided which contributions by both men and women merited inclusion within the pages of their magazines. Even women who did not utilize their periodicals explicitly to challenge gender roles were acutely aware of their unusual position as public women. Some, like the dozen or so women who edited antebellum southern magazines and newspapers, supported their families and earned a public audience and regional reputation. Unable to vote or hold office, southern women editors like Anne Royall, Mary Chase Barney, and Rebecca Hicks would find ways to participate directly and actively in a broad set of political discussions, from railroad funding to cabinet appointments.