During the years Margaret Fuller spent in Europe (1846-1850), she wrote a series of articles for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. Those articles or dispatches–on the newspapers they appeared under the heading “Things and Thoughts in Europe” –were not simply a way to earn a salary that made the trip to Europe possible, but they were also a way for Fuller to participate in the current affairs of the countries she was travelling to, not as one of the many American travellers, or intellectuals visiting Europe in those eventful years, but as a direct witness and participant in the political and social processes that were unfolding. While in London, Fuller meets Giuseppe Mazzini, and writes about their meeting and her visit to Mazzini's "Italian Gratuitous School" for the Tribune.

Fuller’s correspondence becomes markedly more political once she arrives in Rome in the fall of 1847. While Fuller initially seems optimistic regarding the political climate, she soon focuses on the increasing conflict in Italy, replete with arrests and brewing discontent. 

In February 1847, Fuller first mentions a democratic party called “Young Italy,” headed by Mazzini , an influential force in the Risorgimento. After the new year, the situation continues to deteriorate, as Fuller  relates how the Austrian government in Milan has just tried to instigate a revolt, the Austrian police are in conflict with students in Pavia, and Sicily is in full insurrection. 

Fuller stays in Rome through July of 1849 and her writing continues to detail the political upheaval in Europe, following Mazzini and other influential figures such as Adam Mickiewicz and Cristina di Belgiojoso, a Mazzini supporter who was tried, and ultimately acquitted, of high treason.

After Rome fall to the French army, non-Italians are forced to leave. Fuller moves to Florence at the end of 1849, where she continues writing for the Tribune.