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  • Reisetagebücher einer Wiener Gelehrtenfrau aus den Jahren 1876 bis 1889 ed. by Georgiana von Hochstetter
  • Agatha Schwartz
Georgiana von Hochstetter, Reisetagebücher einer Wiener Gelehrtenfrau aus den Jahren 1876 bis 1889. Edited by Christoph Schindler and Sascha Nolden. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2021. 352 pp.

The title of this volume may at first sound misleading for the reader, as we may get the impression that Georgiana von Hochstetter, the spouse of illustrious German and Austrian geologist and tutor of Crown Prince Rudolf, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, was a scientist herself. This turns out not to be the case. The value of these edited journals lies more in what Georgiana von Hochstetter captured during her travels between 1876 and 1889 on which–with the exception of her last trip–she accompanied her scientist husband. Her journals, according to the editors Christoph Schindler and Sascha Nolden, who undertook meticulous research at the Hochstetter family archives and consulted a wealth of literature, were written down in small notebooks, often using various abbreviations. They were by no means intended for [End Page 65] publication, nor to be read by a wide audience, in contrast to the journals of some internationally known early women travelers, such as fellow Austrian Ida Pfeiffer. Unlike Pfeiffer, Hochstetter was not an adventurous traveler and explorer. She did not sail toward any exotic or dangerous destinations. Her ten travel journals collected for this volume encompass notes from journeys within Europe only, more specifically to various cities in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Sweden, France, and Belgium, the latter via Switzerland.

Like her husband Ferdinand, Georgiana von Hochstetter was not a native Austrian. Her father, John Bengough, was an English engineer from London, her mother, Justine Lescoche, a Frenchwoman from Lille. Georgiana was born in Bordeaux in 1842, but when she was still very young, the family moved to Vienna, where her father became general director of the Imperial Continental Gas Association. She thus grew up trilingual in Vienna, which is where she died in 1905. Her multilingual background in evident in her notes when she interjects words or phrases in other languages. Georgiana did not receive much education beyond what was considered appropriate for a woman of her social standing at the time. She was an accomplished musician, though, and sang very well, which she demonstrated at various occasions noted in her journals. She learned about geology and other burgeoning scientific fields of the time through her husband and his contacts with numerous leading academics and researchers. This acquired knowledge shaped her observations during their travels. For example, on 17 July 1876, she took note of the powerful earthquake that shook Vienna in the early morning, just a few hours before they took the train to Munich.

Women's travel literature has become a well-researched field in recent decades; it has been recognized that early women travelers, who often braved not only danger but also convention, can be considered precursors of women's emancipation movements, also in that the publication of these travel narratives on occasion offered the authors an independent income. Oftentimes women who published their travel narratives used the proceeds from their publications to fund further travels because readers were eager to read about their adventures both from Europe and faraway lands. While Georgiana von Hochstetter's path as a woman traveler hardly fits these categories, as she did not break new ground as a travel writer, we can nevertheless conclude from her notes that she displayed aspects of behavior that would have been considered unconventional for a woman of her time and social status. For [End Page 66] example, she was very athletic, a passionate hiker and swimmer. Her braving the waves in her swim dress often elicited awe among bystanders. Yet the greater value of this publication of her travel notes lies in the fact that it offers a detailed insight into the life and international connections of a scientist and, more broadly, of academic life in the late nineteenth century. Through the various stations of the Hochstetter couple's travels, we meet an impressive cohort of the leading scientific figures and explorers of the time, not only fellow geologists but other illustrious names...

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