Ida Laura Pfeiffer

Ida Laura Pfeiffer (14 October 1797 – 27 October 1858), née Reyer, a famous early female Austrian professional traveler who became an explorer, ethnographer, and travel writer; her bestselling journals were translated into seven languages. She journeyed an estimated 32,000 kilometres (20,000 mi) by land and 240,000 kilometres (150,000 mi) by sea through Southeast Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa, and made two trips around the world between 1846 and 1855. Though a member of the geographical societies of both Paris and Berlin, she was denied membership by the Royal Geographical Society in London as it forbade the election of women before 1913.

Early life Ida Laura Reyer was born on 14 October 1797 in Vienna, in the Habsburg monarchy, to Anna Reyer and Aloys Reyer, a wealthy textile manufacturer. She was one of seven children, with five brothers and a younger sister. Encouraged by her father, she received an education similar to that of her brothers, which was unusual for girls of her social class at the time. She was allowed considerable freedom as a child, preferred boys' clothing, and enjoyed sports and outdoor activity. In her later autobiographical writings she described herself as "wild as a boy, and bolder and more forward than my elder brothers". Around 1802, when she was about five years old, she accompanied her family on a journey to Palestine and Egypt. She later recalled that this early experience of travel left a lasting impression on her imagination and interest in distant places. Her father died in 1806, when she was about eight or nine years old. After his death, her mother Anna rejected the unconventional upbringing he had encouraged and insisted that she conform to more traditional expectations for girls, including wearing dresses and taking piano lessons. In 1809, Vienna was occupied by the forces of Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars. French troops were quartered in private homes throughout the city, including the Reyer household. During a military review at Schönbrunn Palace, she later recalled turning her back as the generals rode past, an act she described as a protest against the foreign occupation. She was introduced to exploration literature by her tutor, Franz Josef Trimmel. She developed a strong interest in travel narratives, particularly Robinson Crusoe, and in the scientific writings of the explorer Alexander von Humboldt. Pfeiffer would later meet Humboldt in Berlin. On 1 May 1820, at the age of twenty-two, she married Dr. Mark Anton Pfeiffer, a forty-six-year-old lawyer in Lemberg in Galicia, then part of the Austrian Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine). He was a widower with an adult son from his first marriage. The couple moved to Lemberg about a week after their wedding. Dr. Pfeiffer soon lost his position after exposing corruption among senior government officials in Galicia and found it difficult to secure further employment. The family's financial situation deteriorated, and Pfeiffer travelled repeatedly between Lemberg and Vienna to support the household. She earned money by giving drawing and music lessons and occasionally borrowed money from her brothers. Two sons were born in Vienna: Alfred in 1821 and Oscar in 1824. She also had a daughter who lived only a few days. In 1831, after the death of her mother, Pfeiffer received a small inheritance that modestly improved the family's finances and allowed her to continue the education of her sons. By 1833, she was living in Vienna with the boys while her husband remained in Lemberg near his son from his first marriage, visiting the family in Vienna only occasionally.

Travels

Istanbul, Jerusalem, and Iceland (1842–1845)

At 45 years old with her sons grown and settled in secure employment, Pfeiffer was finally able to fulfill her childhood dream of traveling to foreign places. She later wrote in Reise nach dem skandinavischen Norden und der Insel Island im Jahre 1845 ("Visit to Iceland and the Scandinavian North," 2 vols., Leipzig, 1845):

When I was but a little child, I had already a strong desire to see the world. Whenever I met a travelling-carriage, I would stop involuntarily, and gaze after it until it had disappeared; I used even to envy the postilion, for I thought he also must have accomplished the whole long journey.

In 1842, she first traveled along the River Danube to Istanbul, from there she continued to Jerusalem, stopping at Smyrna, Rhodes, Cyprus, Beirut, Caesarea, and Jaffa. She returned to Beirut on 10 July 1842 and sailed for Egypt. She visited Alexandria, Cairo, and the Red Sea before returning home via Rome. Among those she met on the trip was landscape painter Hubert Sattler, the British artist William Henry Bartlett, and the Bohemian botanist, Count Friedrich von Berchtold. She published an anonymous account of her journey in Reise einer Wienerin in das Heilige Land ("A Vienna woman's trip to the Holy Land," 2 vols., Vienna, 1844). In return, she received 700 florins to fund her next trip. The book was an instant success. It went through three editions and was translated into Czech in 1846 and English in 1852. In 1845, Pfeiffer set out to Scandinavia and Iceland. In preparation for her travel, she studied English and Danish as well as how to preserve natural specimens and take daguerreotypes. The adventure began on 10 April 1845. She traveled from Vienna to Copenhagen, then boarded the Johann on 4 May, reaching Hafnarfjörður on the southwest coast of Iceland in eleven days. She rode to Reykjavík on horseback and toured the geothermal area of Krýsuvík. She proceeded to visit the Golden Falls and climb the volcano Mount Hekla. After her return to Denmark, she took a small steamer north to Gothenburg, Sweden and from there, went further north to Norway. She came back to Vienna on 4 October 1845 and published her journal the following year: Reise nach dem skandinavischen Norden und der Insel Island ("Trip to the Scandinavian North and the island of Iceland," Pest, 1846). English translations of the book appeared in Britain and the US in 1852.

First trip round the world (1846–1848)

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