Women Adventurers 1750 1900

The past quarter-century has seen a number of biographies and anthologies on women travelers but to date there has been little comprehensive reference work done on the travelers themselves. Some of the women were eccentric, many were very adventurous, some were in search of a different world... British women make up the largest portion of the book’s focus—these particular adventurers being backed in many cases by family money, scientific inquiry, and the ready availability of the British seafaring tradition. Entries include the woman’s family background, her educational history, and a summary of her world travels, with in many cases evocative extracts from their writings (many are literary gems).

In this “thought-provoking blend of history, biography, women’s studies, and travelogue” (Library Journal) Mia Kankimäki recounts her enchanting travels in Japan, Kenya, and Italy while retracing the steps of ten remarkable female pioneers from history. What can a forty-something childless woman do? Bored with her life and feeling stuck, Mia Kankimäki leaves her job, sells her apartment, and decides to travel the world, following the paths of the female explorers and artists from history who have long inspired her. She flies to Tanzania and then to Kenya to see where Karen Blixen—of Out of Africa fame—lived in the 1920s. In Japan, Mia attempts to cure her depression while researching Yayoi Kusama, the contemporary artist who has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric hospital for decades. In Italy, Mia spends her days looking for the works of forgotten Renaissance women painters of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and finally finds her heroines in the portraits of Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Atremisia Gentileschi. If these women could make it in the world hundreds of years ago, why can’t Mia? The Women I Think About at Night is “an astute, entertaining…[and] insightful” (Publishers Weekly) exploration of the lost women adventurers of history who defied expectations in order to see—and change—the world.

Focusing on images of or produced by well-to-do nineteenth-century European women, this volume explores genteel femininity as resistant to easy codification vis-?is the public. Attending to various iterations of the public as space, sphere and discourse, sixteen essays challenge the false binary construct that has held the public as the sole preserve of prosperous men. By contrast, the essays collected in Women, Femininity and Public Space in European Visual Culture, 1789-1914 demonstrate that definitions of both femininity and the public were mutually defining and constantly shifting. In examining the relationship between affluent women, femininity and the public, the essays gathered here consider works by an array of artists that includes canonical ones such as Mary Cassatt and Fran?s G?rd as well as understudied women artists including Louise Abb? and Broncia Koller. The essays also consider works in a range of media from fashion prints and paintings to private journals and architectural designs, facilitating an analysis of femininity in public across the cultural production of the period. Various European centers, including Madrid, Florence, Paris, Brittany, Berlin and London, emerge as crucial sites of production for genteel femininity, providing a long-overdue rethinking of modern femininity in the public sphere.

Focusing on images of or produced by nineteenth-century European women, this volume explores genteel femininity as resistant to easy codification vis-à-vis the public. Attending to various iterations of the public as space, sphere and discourse, sixteen essays challenge the false binary construct that has held the public as the sole preserve of prosperous men. By considering works in a range of media by an array of canonical and understudied women artists, they demonstrate that definitions of both femininity and the public were mutually defining and constantly shifting.

This book examines the processes of scientific, cultural, political, technical, colonial and violent appropriation during the 19th century. The 19th century was the century of world travel. The earth was explored, surveyed, described, illustrated, and categorized. Travelogues became world bestsellers. Modern technology accompanied the travelers and adventurers: clocks, a postal and telegraph system, surveying equipment, and cameras. The world grew together faster and faster. Previously unknown places became better known: the highest peaks, the coldest spots, the hottest deserts, and the most remote cities. Knowledge about the white spots of the earth was systematically collected. Those who made a name for themselves in the 19th century are still read today. Alexander von Humboldt or Charles Darwin made the epoch a scientific heyday. Ida Pfeiffer or Isabelle Bird (Bishop) traveled to distant continents and took their readers at home on insightful journeys. Hermann Vámbéry or Sir Richard Burton got to know the most remote languages and regions. There are countless travel reports about a fascinating century, which, with surveying and exploration, also brought colonial conquest and exploitation into the world. In ten individual studies, the authors explore travelers from all over the world and analyze their successes. The unifying element of all the studies is the experience of distance and its communication by means of travelogues to the armchair travelers who have stayed at home. This volume will be of value to students and scholars both interested in modern history, social and cultural history, and the history of science and technology.

The history of women in the opera is a grand story. Women were singers and patrons, of course, but from opera's beginnings in Renaissance Italy, they were also opera composers and librettists. At first it was exclusively for the nobility. In the 19th century, with the emergence of the middle class and the rise of nationalism, there were more public theaters and opera seemed to be everywhere. This meant more opportunities for composers, though men predominated. This book focuses on the women, from the 16th century to today, who had successful careers in opera, many of them well known in their time.

Discover the incredible journeys of women adventurers in the 19th century through W.H. Davenport Adams' 'Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century'. Follow the courageous footsteps of Countess Dora D'Istria, Princess of Belgiojoso, Lady Hester Stanhope, and other remarkable women who defied the conventions of their time to explore distant lands and unfamiliar cultures. From the African deserts to the icy terrains of the Arctic, these women share their vivid, thrilling, and often harrowing experiences of life on the road.

Language is still a relatively under-researched aspect of the Grand Tour. This book offers a comprehensive introduction enriched by the amusing stories and vivid quotations collected from travellers' writings, providing crucial insights into the rise of modern vernaculars and the standardisation of European languages.