Inspired by the work of De Tocqueville and Martineau, Bremer visited and traveled extensively through the United States. Leaving Copenhagen on 11 September 1849, she arrived in New York on 4 October. With the intent of studying the effect of democratic institutions upon society, particularly for women, she visited Boston and New England, where she met Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Hawthorne, and Irving; the Shaker and Quaker communities of the Mid-Atlantic States; the South, where she examined the conditions of its black slaves; and the Midwest, where she toured its Scandinavian communities and Indians. Like De Tocqueville before her, she visited America's prisons and spoke with prisoners. She then visited Spanish Cuba before returning to New York, leaving for Europe on 13 September 1851. Throughout her journey, she wrote extensive letters to her sister Agathe which were later edited into her 2-volume 1853 "Homes in the New World". Having previously portrayed the Swedish home as a world unto itself, she now portrayed the American world as a great home through the many families who hosted her as she roamed. She spent six weeks in Britain, visiting Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and London and meeting Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Kingsley, and George Eliot. Her series of articles about England for the "Aftonbladet" largely concerned her favorable impression of the Great Exhibition, which she visited four times. They were later gathered for English publication as "England in 1851".