tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-583472384582115092024-03-19T00:34:07.108-04:00Women Without BoundariesOn land and sea, they traversed all corners of the world, opening doors for modern women of adventure.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-84383611313722003762012-03-31T16:26:00.001-04:002012-04-14T10:50:33.517-04:00Harriet Chalmers Adams ~ Explorer<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrfB75ky1hn_ARLG_PZ8Z2koO-dRX1iwBUEyXLYj2CUvZpaCnss-RkdC3XWvugzFsk1jx-76-tgcuFGUkVANWs5FVQHMbhlr3Z6xSBkMcl7lDVFvonn3CvnXPi3M8-WivEVQz8_BZUVWQ/s1600/HarrietChalmerAdams.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrfB75ky1hn_ARLG_PZ8Z2koO-dRX1iwBUEyXLYj2CUvZpaCnss-RkdC3XWvugzFsk1jx-76-tgcuFGUkVANWs5FVQHMbhlr3Z6xSBkMcl7lDVFvonn3CvnXPi3M8-WivEVQz8_BZUVWQ/s1600/HarrietChalmerAdams.jpg" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Harriet Chalmers Adams</span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> (October 22, 1875 – July 17, 1937) was an American explorer, writer and photographer. She travelled extensively in South America, Asia and the South Pacific in the early 20th century, and published accounts of her journeys in the <i>National Geographic</i> magazine. She lectured frequently on her travels and illustrated her talks with color slides and movies.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1904, she undertook her first major expedition, a three-year trip around South America with her husband, Franklin Adams, during which they visited every country, and traversed the Andes on horseback. The New York Times wrote that she "reached twenty frontiers previously unknown to white women."</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a later trip she retraced the trail of Christopher Columbus’ early discoveries in the Americas, and crossed Haiti on horseback.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harriet served as a correspondent for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harper's Magazine</i> in Europe during World War I. Later she and her husband visited eastern Bolivia during a second extended trip to South America.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From 1907 to 1935, she wrote 21 articles for the National Geographic Society that featured her photographs, including "Some Wonderful Sights in the Andean Highlands" (September 1908), "Kaleidoscopic La Paz: City of the Clouds" (February 1909) and "River-Encircled Paraguay" (April 1933). She wrote on Trinidad, Surinam, Bolivia, Peru and the trans-Andean railroad between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSg3n8doB37mWIUpt3WoueBB9aUsgvCzCUVDF52y0F3Fus-4ZVsrLXPRdDSRDG7PbxS3oxf-cWTGoJWHmLWKxTwoRCvxIj86xxuK9Zp8Eh4PnSvjuJsWyMS3SQis0Ixwe5as3Qv2K9kk/s1600/HarrietGobi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSg3n8doB37mWIUpt3WoueBB9aUsgvCzCUVDF52y0F3Fus-4ZVsrLXPRdDSRDG7PbxS3oxf-cWTGoJWHmLWKxTwoRCvxIj86xxuK9Zp8Eh4PnSvjuJsWyMS3SQis0Ixwe5as3Qv2K9kk/s320/HarrietGobi.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harriet in the Gobi Desert</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In her day, the National Geographical Society did not allow women as full members, so in 1925, she helped launch the Society of Woman Geographers, and served as its first president until 1933.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In all, she is said to have travelled more than a hundred thousand miles, and captivated hundreds of audiences. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> wrote, "Harriet Chalmers Adams is America's greatest woman explorer. As a lecturer no one, man or woman, has a more magnetic hold over an audience than she."</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harriet died in Nice, France, in 1937, at age 62. An obituary in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington Post</i> called her a "confidant of savage head hunters" who never stopped wandering the remote corners of the world. She is interred at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, CA. </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of women as adventurers, she wrote:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><em>"I've wondered why men have so absolutely monopolized the field of exploration. Why did women never go to the Arctic, try for one pole or the other, or invade Africa,Thibet, or unknown wildernesses? I’ve never found my sex a hinderment; never faced a difficulty which a woman, as well as a man, could not surmount; never felt a fear of danger; never lacked courage to protect myself. I’ve been in tight places and have seen harrowing things."</em></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-42160112792263179502012-03-30T16:25:00.000-04:002012-04-11T14:09:51.619-04:00Florence Von Sass Baker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDmMv7o0vPsHF_aF4EPYIj8n9C_-jBHv24nO7V-1rcc2hBlBr7-6QD6e9ul0f0I5nWzUZOh-S14qWvDws0HLR7eMzcPAuNdPJn4AFfCgY3kU6sCrszg3CzFJmeYx_vE9_mc-JguWw4Ve0/s1600/Florence+Baker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDmMv7o0vPsHF_aF4EPYIj8n9C_-jBHv24nO7V-1rcc2hBlBr7-6QD6e9ul0f0I5nWzUZOh-S14qWvDws0HLR7eMzcPAuNdPJn4AFfCgY3kU6sCrszg3CzFJmeYx_vE9_mc-JguWw4Ve0/s200/Florence+Baker.jpg" width="161" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">While British explorer Samuel Baker was visiting the Duke of Atholl on his shooting estate in Scotland, he befriended Maharaja Duleep Singh and in 1858–1859, the two partnered an extensive hunting trip in central Europe and the Balkans, via Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna and Budapest. On the last part of the voyage, Baker and the Maharajah hired a wooden boat in Budapest, which was eventually abandoned on the frozen Danube. The two continued into Vidin where, to amuse the Maharajah, Baker went to the Vidin slave market.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">There, Baker fell in love with a white slave girl, destined for the Ottoman Pasha of Vidin. He was outbid by the Pasha but bribed the girl's attendants and they ran away in a carriage together. Eventually she became his lover and wife and accompanied him everywhere he journeyed. They are reported to have married, most probably in Bucharest, before going to Dubrushka, but Sir Samuel certainly promised that they would go through another ceremony on their return to England - where they had a family wedding in 1865.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The story handed down in the Baker family is that she was the daughter of a Hungarian Szekely officer of a German aristocratic family, who had great estates in Romania, called von Sas (a branch of the von Sass family) and at some time, while she was very young, during the terrible uprising and revolution of 1848 "her father and brothers had been killed before her eyes". </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She spoke initially Hungarian, Romanian, German and Turk. She was officially born August 6, 1841 (but more probably 1845) in Nagyenyed, Austrian Empire (today Aiud, Romania) and was baptised Florenz Barbara Maria. She said that her nurse helped her to a refugee camp in Vidin, Bulgaria. Possibly it was there that she was adopted by an Armenian family with name Finnian (or Finnin). Her nurse married and left her, probably during the first Amnesty of 1857. Later she was abducted and sold to an Armenian slave merchant, who groomed her for the Harem. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5_tFKVOi_4b20FbNZJAcyjlKvMCYk172F6KNSrTvR5xX1sVGqHmiXl3q3y0ZagJT07bLy__HpYDP5gnQ4npixzUFEuruNWPfBxzDLe0YIKCKL_Tz77vSmEbRcK4wKLdHoo5PwQeOlFw/s1600/Florence+Baker1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5_tFKVOi_4b20FbNZJAcyjlKvMCYk172F6KNSrTvR5xX1sVGqHmiXl3q3y0ZagJT07bLy__HpYDP5gnQ4npixzUFEuruNWPfBxzDLe0YIKCKL_Tz77vSmEbRcK4wKLdHoo5PwQeOlFw/s320/Florence+Baker1.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Baker and the girl fled to Bucharest and remained in Romania, Baker applying for the position of British Consul there but he was refused. In Constanta, he acted as the Royal Superintendent for the construction of a railway and bridges across the Dobroqea, connecting the Danube with the Black Sea. After its completion he spent some months on a tour in south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. The new consul issued Baker's companion with a British passport under the name Florence Barbara Maria Finnian, although she was British neither by birth nor yet by marriage. She was affectionately called "Flooey" by Baker and later nicknamed <i>Anyadwe</i> or <i>Daughter of the Moon</i> in what is now northern Uganda by the Luo-speaking Acholi natives, who prized her long blonde hair.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Florence refused to stay home, instead following her husband in his travels. She spoke English, Turk and Arabic, rode camels, mules and horses and carried pistols when in the wilds. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She died on March 11, 1916 at the estate she had shared with her husband in Sandford Orleigh, Devon. She was 74 years old and was buried with her husband, who died 23 years earlier, in the Baker family vault at Grimley, near Worcester, although her name was never recorded.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It is possible that the story of how Samuel Baker met his future second wife and her origin were romanticised by him and adapted to the expectations of Victorian society. (A rescue of an exotic princess by a brave white gentleman was a favorite plot of contemporary colonial novels.) Similarly, Florence Baker is on all drawings from Africa depicted in a conventional Victorian lady's dress but in Africa she used to wear an outfit almost identical to the one her husband had designed for himself. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Although Sir Samuel and Lady Baker were personally charming enough to conquer most of Victorian society, Queen Victoria refused to receive Florence at court since she believed Baker had been "intimate with his wife before marriage", as indeed he had. Confusingly, Lady Baker is in Hungarian sources known as Sass (or Szász) Flóra, and Florica Maria Sas in the Romanian sources. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-3932857346485459922012-03-29T16:25:00.001-04:002012-04-14T10:52:24.274-04:00Jeanne Baret ~ Explorer & Circumnavigator<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjEznx16QRZZVSCFfWDgVcg9GPAoIWLz1slWf6krQV7w-N_O9PcQLd0d8SCcVfWjwI117VYNn9k-VsrLuR0eDHlZlClhry0KJ5MpXCXxOKHcG_5LGz5iEjF6apvl9pjRaPiIatx39OyY8/s1600/Jeanne+Baret.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjEznx16QRZZVSCFfWDgVcg9GPAoIWLz1slWf6krQV7w-N_O9PcQLd0d8SCcVfWjwI117VYNn9k-VsrLuR0eDHlZlClhry0KJ5MpXCXxOKHcG_5LGz5iEjF6apvl9pjRaPiIatx39OyY8/s320/Jeanne+Baret.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Jeanne Baret</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (sometimes spelled <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Baré</span> or <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Barret</span>) (July 27, 1740 – August 5, 1807) was a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition on the ships <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Boudeuse</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Etoile</i> in 1766–1769 and is recognized as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shortly before Bougainville’s ships sailed from France, she joined the expedition disguised as Jean Baret, a male valet and assistant to the expedition's naturalist, Philibert Commercon (anglicized as Commerson). According to Bougainville's account, Baret was herself an expert botanist.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeanne was born in the village of La Comelle in the Burgundy region of France. Her record of baptism survives and identifies her as the legitimate issue of Jean Baret and Jeanne Pochard. Her father is identified as a day laborer, and seems likely to have been illiterate as he did not sign the parish register. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing definitive is known of her childhood or young adulthood. She later told Bougainville that she had been orphaned and lost her fortune in a lawsuit before taking to disguising herself as a man. While she might well have been an orphan given the low life expectancies of the time, historians agree that other details of the story she gave Bougainville were a fabrication to shield Commerson from complicity in her disguise. Burgundy was at this time one of the more backward provinces of France in terms of the condition of the peasant classes, and it is likely that Baret's family were quite impoverished.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the mysteries of Jeanne’s life is how she obtained at least the rudiments of an education, as her signature on later legal documents provides evidence that she was not illiterate. One of her biographers, Glynis Ridley, suggests that her mother may have been of Huguenot extraction, a group that had a higher tradition of literacy than was otherwise typical of the peasant classes of the time. Another biographer, John Dunmore, suggests that she may have been taught by the parish priest or taken on as a charity case by a member of the local gentry.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4yuvBpeQZTJYSUFIa9muEgKIxJ5lAsTiBJwE2R1_1oy2iEI3mPkDAHBTXBLUe0G28BdC4KrYDXa-EvwWwlHkQoTJSa-5cFhfWJ-W3XLMIXWzjPwEYT6XqwiOoails6MVxvZu5X53Dce0/s1600/Commerson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4yuvBpeQZTJYSUFIa9muEgKIxJ5lAsTiBJwE2R1_1oy2iEI3mPkDAHBTXBLUe0G28BdC4KrYDXa-EvwWwlHkQoTJSa-5cFhfWJ-W3XLMIXWzjPwEYT6XqwiOoails6MVxvZu5X53Dce0/s200/Commerson.jpg" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Philibert Commercon</span> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At some point between 1760 and 1764, she became employed as housekeeper to Commerson, who had settled in Toulon-sur-Arroux, some 20 km to the south of La Comelle, upon his marriage in 1760. Commerson's wife, who was the sister of the parish priest, died shortly after giving birth to a son in April, 1762 and it seems most likely that Jeanne took over management of Commerson's household at that time, if not before.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is also evident that Jeanne and Commerson shared a more personal relationship, as she became pregnant in 1764. French law at that time required women who became pregnant out of wedlock to obtain a "certificate of pregnancy" in which they could name the father of their unborn child. Jeanne’s certificate from August 1764 survives; it was filed in a town 30 km away, and witnessed by two men of substance who likewise had travelled a considerable distance from their homes. She refused to name the father of her child, but historians do not doubt that it was Commerson, and that it was Commerson who had also made the arrangements with the lawyer and witnesses on her behalf.</span></span></div> <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shortly afterwards she and Commerson moved together to Paris, where she continued in the role of his housekeeper. She apparently changed her name to "Jeanne de Bonnefoy" during this period. Her child, born in December 1764, was given the name Jean-Pierre Baret. The child was given up to the Paris Foundlings Hospital and was quickly placed with a foster mother, but died in the summer of 1765.<sup id="cite_ref-17"> </sup>(Commerson had left his legitimate son from his marriage in the care of his brother-in-law in Toulon-sur-Arroux, and never saw him again in his lifetime.)</span></span></div> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvOHopook-4PCWpRMQ0kiCHZt_YT_9ML41tDacoDCadiqvz760D8uwwCZ9QzILvvMzfP_9MGHRToRWxo3t0_rCAavUJMNko7XmfrU1JBLkE4aIJIL8JnQASkz9Hb5xif3FCgNHJ89Z0c/s1600/La+Boudeuse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvOHopook-4PCWpRMQ0kiCHZt_YT_9ML41tDacoDCadiqvz760D8uwwCZ9QzILvvMzfP_9MGHRToRWxo3t0_rCAavUJMNko7XmfrU1JBLkE4aIJIL8JnQASkz9Hb5xif3FCgNHJ89Z0c/s1600/La+Boudeuse.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">La Boudeuse</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1765, Commerson was invited to join Bougainville's expedition. He hesitated in accepting because he was often in poor health; he required Jeanne’s assistance as a nurse as well as in running his household and managing his collections and papers. His appointment allowed him a servant, paid as a royal expense, but women were completely prohibited on French navy ships at this time.<sup id="cite_ref-21"> </sup>At some point the idea of Jeanne disguising herself as a man in order to accompany Commerson was conceived. To avoid scrutiny, she was to join the expedition immediately before the ship sailed, pretending to be a stranger to Commerson.</span></span> <br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before leaving Paris, Commerson drew up a will in which he left to "Jeanne Baret, known as de Bonnefoi, my housekeeper", a lump sum of 600 livres along with back wages owed and the furnishings of their Paris apartment.<sup id="cite_ref-22"> </sup>Thus, while the story Jeanne concocted for Bougainville's benefit to explain her presence on board ship was carefully designed to shield Commerson from involvement, there is clear documentary evidence of their previous relationship, and it is highly improbable that Commerson was not complicit in the plan himself.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeanne and Commerson joined the Bougainville expedition at the port of Rochefort in late December, 1766. They were assigned to sail on the store ship, the <i>Étoile</i>. Because of the vast quantity of equipment Commerson was bringing on the voyage, the ship's captain, François Chesnard de la Giraudais, gave up his own large cabin on the ship to Commerson and his "assistant".<sup id="cite_ref-24"> </sup>This gave Jeanne significantly more privacy than she would have had otherwise on board the crowded ship. In particular, the captain's cabin gave her access to private toilet facilities so that she did not have to use the shared head like other members of the crew.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to Bougainville's published account, Jeanne’s story includes three other surviving memoirs of the expedition: A journal kept jointly by Commerson and Pierre Duclos-Guyot; a journal by the Prince of Nassau-Siegen, a paying passenger on the <i>Boudeuse</i>; and a memoir by François Vivès, surgeon on the <i>Étoile</i>.<sup id="cite_ref-25"> </sup>Vivès has the most to say about her, but his memoir is problematical because he and Commerson were on bad terms throughout the voyage and his account – largely written or revised after the fact – is full of innuendo and spiteful comments directed at both Commerson and Jeanne.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4t5_gz4X5PHxwu6PQa4onxLkaswPAnYqHayQljJ7EH6C2ema0Lz_wGE6-MMiXfjuF2XcxVJ-eV365xSsxRxcgVSXJNEiPFjxS_BdFqsHgL26X_A9mxTj9-GahwjBlE5VSz1cGw7aKj9g/s1600/Bougenvillea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4t5_gz4X5PHxwu6PQa4onxLkaswPAnYqHayQljJ7EH6C2ema0Lz_wGE6-MMiXfjuF2XcxVJ-eV365xSsxRxcgVSXJNEiPFjxS_BdFqsHgL26X_A9mxTj9-GahwjBlE5VSz1cGw7aKj9g/s200/Bougenvillea.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Commerson suffered badly from both seasickness and a recurring ulcer on his leg in the early part of the voyage and Jeanne probably spent most of her time attending to him. Aside from the ceremony of "crossing the line", which Commerson described in some detail in his memoir, there was little for the botanists to do until the <i>Étoile</i> reached Montevideo.<sup id="cite_ref-28"> </sup>There they set out on expeditions to the surrounding plains and mountains. Commerson's leg was still troubling him and Jeanne seems to have done much of the actual labor, carrying supplies and specimens.<sup id="cite_ref-29"> </sup>In Rio de Janeiro – a much more dangerous place, where the <i>Étoile'</i>s chaplain was murdered ashore soon after their arrival – Commerson was officially confined to the ship while his leg healed, but they nonetheless collected specimens of a flowering vine which he named Bougainvillea. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a second visit to Montevideo, their next opportunity to botanize was in Patagonia while the ships of the expedition were waiting for favorable winds to carry them through the Strait of Magellan. Here Jeanne accompanied Commerson on the most troublesome excursions over rugged terrain and gained a reputation for courage and strength.<sup id="cite_ref-nla_31-0"> </sup>Commerson, still hampered by his leg injury, referred to her as his "beast of burden" on these expeditions. In addition to the manual labor she performed in collecting plants, stones, and shells, she also helped Commerson organize and catalog their specimens and notes in the weeks that followed, as the ships entered the Pacific.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Surviving accounts of the expedition differ on when Jeanne’s true sex was first discovered. According to Bougainville, rumors that she was a woman had circulated for some time, but her sex was not finally confirmed until the expedition reached Tahiti in April 1768. As soon as she and Commerson landed on shore to botanize, she was immediately surrounded by Tahitians who cried out that she was a woman. It was necessary to return her to the ship to protect her from the excited Tahitians. Bougainville recorded this incident in his journal some weeks after it happened, when he had an opportunity to visit the <i>Étoile</i> to interview Jeanne personally. </span></span></div><blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>‘Yesterday I checked on board the Étoile a rather peculiar event. For some time, a rumour had been circulating on the two ships that Mr de Commerçon’s servant, named Baré, was a woman. His structure, his caution in never changing his clothes or carrying out any natural function in the presence of anyone, the sound of his voice, his beardless chin, and several other indications had given rise to this suspicion and reinforced it’ <cite>(De Bougainville’s Journal, 28–29 May 1768).</cite></em></span></blockquote><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vivès also reports much speculation about Jeanne’s sex early in the voyage, and asserts that she claimed to be a eunuch when confronted directly by La Giraudais (whose own official log has not survived).<sup id="cite_ref-34"> </sup>Bougainville's account of her unmasking on Tahiti is not corroborated by the other journalists, although Vivès describes a similar incident in which she was immediately pointed out as a woman by the Tahitian Ahu-toru on board the ship. Ahu-toru travelled back to France with the expedition and was subsequently questioned at some length about this. (Modern scholars now believe that Ahu-toru actually thought that Jeanne was a transvestite, or mahu.)<sup id="cite_ref-36"> </sup><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vivès also describes a different incident on New Ireland in mid-July in which she was caught off-guard, stripped, and "examined" by a group of other servants on the expedition. Duclos-Guyot and Nassau-Siegen also recorded that Jeanne had been discovered to be a woman on New Ireland, but without mentioning details. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After crossing the Pacific, the expedition was desperately short of food. After a brief stop for supplies in the Dutch East Indies, the ships made a longer stop at the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. This island, also known as Île de France, was then an important French trading station. Commerson was delighted to find that his old friend and fellow botanist Pierre Poivre was serving as governor on the island, and Commerson and Jeanne remained behind as Poivre's guests. Probably Bougainville also actively encouraged this arrangement as it allowed him to rid himself of the problem of a woman illegally on board his expedition. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Mauritius, Jeanne continued in her role as Commerson's assistant and housekeeper. It is likely that she accompanied him to botanize on Madagascar and Bourbon Island in 1770-1772. Commerson continued to have serious health problems and he died on Mauritius in February, 1773. His financial resources on the island had dwindled, his patron Poivre had been recalled to Paris, and Jeanne was left without the means to immediately return to France to claim the money due her from Commerson's will. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After Commerson's death, she seems to have found work running a tavern in Port Louis for a time. Then, on 17 May 1774, she married Jean Dubernat, a non-commissioned officer in the French Army who was most likely on the island on his way home to France. There is no record of exactly when Jeanne and her husband arrived in France, thus completing her voyage of circumnavigation. Most likely it was sometime in 1775. In April 1776, she received the money that was due to her under Commerson's will after applying directly to the Attorney General.<sup id="cite_ref-44"> </sup>With this money, she settled with Dubernat in his native village of Saint-Aulaye where he may have set up as a blacksmith.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1785, Jeanne was granted a pension of 200 livres a year by the Ministry of Marine. The document granting her this pension makes clear the high regard with which she was held by this point:</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><em>Jeanne Barré, by means of a disguise, circumnavigated the globe on one of the vessels commanded by Mr de Bougainville. She devoted herself in particular to assisting Mr de Commerson, doctor and botanist, and shared with great courage the labours and dangers of this savant. Her behaviour was exemplary and Mr de Bougainville refers to it with all due credit.... His Lordship has been gracious enough to grant to this extraordinary woman a pension of two hundred livres a year to be drawn from the fund for invalid servicemen and this pension shall be payable from 1 January 1785.</em></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-85455043251894698762012-03-28T16:25:00.003-04:002012-04-14T11:05:29.382-04:00Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell ~ Archaeologist, Explorer & Spy<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPD9n2v_D_FgOE5zBUpEOYCDUt7vevN8gk9AAJXugusywXftLE171N5KY2t5Di9hao9lD5_9ivkmyP8mmQz2K_hNH3IBl1QkyUEpx8qhnzpAd6pUScTBHaN34Yq8CAqKLZfphWZboaQdA/s1600/Gertrude+Bell+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPD9n2v_D_FgOE5zBUpEOYCDUt7vevN8gk9AAJXugusywXftLE171N5KY2t5Di9hao9lD5_9ivkmyP8mmQz2K_hNH3IBl1QkyUEpx8qhnzpAd6pUScTBHaN34Yq8CAqKLZfphWZboaQdA/s320/Gertrude+Bell+3.jpg" width="227" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Renowned as the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Uncrowned Queen of Iraq"</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><strong>"Oh Hafiz, seeking an end to strife,</strong></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><strong>Hold fast in thy mind what the wise have writ:</strong></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><strong>"If at last thou attain the desire of thy life,</strong></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><strong>Cast the world aside, yea, abandon in!"</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><strong>~ Hafez Shirazi poem translated by Gertrude Bell</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (July 14, 1868 – July 12, 1926) was an English writer, traveler, political officer, administrator, archaeologist and spy who explored, mapped and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and Arabia. Along with T.E. Lawrence, she helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq. She played a major role in establishing and helping administer the modern state of Iraq, utilizing her unique perspective from her travels and relations with tribal leaders throughout the Middle East. During her lifetime she was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials and given an immense amount of power for a woman at the time. She has also been described as "one of the few representatives of His Majesty's Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection".<sup></sup></span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Born in Washington Hall, County Durham, England (now known as Dame Margaret Hall) to a family whose wealth enabled her travels, she is described as having "reddish hair and piercing blue-green eyes, with her mother's bow shaped lips and rounded chin, her father’s oval face and pointed nose".<sup> </sup>Her personality was characterized by energy, intellect and a thirst for adventure which shaped her path in life. Her grandfather was Isaac Sir Lowthian Bell, an industrialist and a Liberal Member of Parliament, in Benjamin Disraeli's second term. His role in British policy-making exposed Gertrude at a young age to international matters and most likely encouraged her curiosity for the world, and her later involvement in international politics.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her mother, Mary Shield Bell, died in 1871 while giving birth to son Maurice. Gertrude was just three at the time, and the death led to a close relationship with her father, Sir Hugh Bell, 2nd Baronet, who was three times mayor of Middlesbrough, High Sheriff of Durham 1895, Justice of the Peace, Deputy Lieutenant of County Durham, Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire. Throughout her life she consulted with him on political matters. Some biographies say the loss of her mother had caused underlying childhood trauma, revealed through periods of depression and risky behavior. At age seven Gertrude acquired a stepmother, Florence Bell, and eventually, three half-siblings. Florence was a playwright and author of children's stories, as well as the author of a study of Bell factory workers. She instilled concepts of duty and decorum in Gertrude and contributed to her intellectual and anti-feminist activities in the Anti-Suffrage League. Her activities with the wives of Bolckow Vaughan ironworkers in Eston, near Middlesbrough, may have helped influence her step-daughter's later stance promoting education of Iraqi women. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gertrude received her early education from Queen's College in London and then later at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University at age 17. History was one of the few subjects women were allowed to study, due to the many restrictions imposed on them at the time. She specialized in modern history, in which she received a first class honors degree in two years. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, was British minister (similar to ambassador) at Tehran, Persia. In May 1892, after leaving Oxford, she travelled to Persia to visit him and described this journey in her book, <i>Persian Pictures</i>. She spent much of the next decade traveling around the world, mountaineering in Switzerland and developing a passion for archaeology and languages. She had become fluent in Arabic, Persian, French and German and was able to speak Italian and Turkish. In 1899, she again went to the Middle East, visiting Palestine and Syria that year. In 1900, on a trip from Jerusalem to Damascus, she became acquainted with the Druze living in Jabal al-Druze. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjq7zjIe1JIqSia-qrLaj81gxhi72aW5_efcsTvCh9K5xGl4G5xkkNm5RHbtmxpUu7i2cqTtfRVf60lsNE1Ffy-4NjuQGw9IbsLM9-ER6wF4Adnx7pwD21s4tQY8OyM8XuAf02n5ldrI/s1600/Gertrude+Bell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjq7zjIe1JIqSia-qrLaj81gxhi72aW5_efcsTvCh9K5xGl4G5xkkNm5RHbtmxpUu7i2cqTtfRVf60lsNE1Ffy-4NjuQGw9IbsLM9-ER6wF4Adnx7pwD21s4tQY8OyM8XuAf02n5ldrI/s1600/Gertrude+Bell.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Visiting Archaeological Excavations</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Babylon, 1909</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She traveled across Arabia six times over the next 12 years and published her observations in the book <i>Syria: The Desert and the Sown</i> published in 1907. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this book she described, photographed and detailed her trip to Greater Syria's towns and cities like Damascus, Jerusalem, Beirut, Antioch and Alexandretta. Her vivid descriptions opened up the Arabian deserts to the western world. In March 1907, she journeyed to the Ottoman Empire and began to work with the archaeologist and New Testament scholar Sir William M. Ramsey. Their excavations were chronicled in <i>A Thousand and One Churches.</i></span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In January 1909, Gertrude left for Mesopotamia. She visited the Hittite city of Carchemish, mapped and described the ruin of Ukhaidir and finally went to Babylon and Najaf. Back in Carchemish, she consulted with the two archaeologists on site. One of them was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78y7jYZ1lnE&feature=related">T.E. Lawrence</a>. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gertrude also became honorary secretary of the British Women's Anti-Suffrage League. Her stated reason for her anti-suffrage stand was that as long as women felt that the kitchen and the bedroom were their only domains, they were truly unprepared to take part in deciding how a nation should be ruled.</span></span></i></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the outbreak of World War I, her request for a Middle East posting was initially denied. She instead volunteered with the Red Cross in France. Later, she was asked by British Intelligence to get soldiers through the deserts, and from the World War I period until her death she was the only woman holding political power and influence in shaping British imperial policy in the Middle East. She often acquired a team of locals which she directed and led on her expeditions. She was the second foreign woman after Lady Anne Blunt to visit Ha'il.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throughout her travels Gertrude established close relations with tribe members across the Middle East. Additionally, being a woman gave her exclusive access to the chambers of wives of tribe leaders, giving her access to other perspectives and functions. Because both Gertrude and T.E. Lawrence had traveled the desert and established ties with the local tribes and gain unique perspectives of the people and the land prior to World War I, Lt. Cmdr. David Hogarth realized the value of their expertise. Both stood hardly 5'5", yet they could ride with great determination and endurance through the desert for hours on end. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She never married nor had children, but had an unconsummated affair with Major Charles Doughty-Wylie, a married man, with whom she exchanged love letters from 1913-1915. Upon his death in 1915 at Gallipoli, Gertrude launched herself into her work. Some say his death affected her for the rest of her life and may have added to a depressive state. </span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNwzjGYR1yjiPCDgY4AmYEGNYqIoEO2Q1tFJF80X9d71fZ6mSFf0B91XF5V5HiFV7CpuKwjqz78JcZXw7wxYWaST4P_g2iVwevnoeQvV1pmEi5YFk9t75Z3Vwjicrsa8qW6DbETgcN2Dc/s1600/Bell+&+Lawrence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNwzjGYR1yjiPCDgY4AmYEGNYqIoEO2Q1tFJF80X9d71fZ6mSFf0B91XF5V5HiFV7CpuKwjqz78JcZXw7wxYWaST4P_g2iVwevnoeQvV1pmEi5YFk9t75Z3Vwjicrsa8qW6DbETgcN2Dc/s320/Bell+&+Lawrence.jpg" width="235" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In November 1915, she was summoned to Cairo to the nascent Arab Bureau, headed by General Gilbert Clayton and again met Lawrence. At first she did not receive an official position, but in her first months there, helped Hogarth set about organizing and processing her own, Lawrence's and Capt. W.H.I. Shakespear's data about the location and disposition of Arab tribes that could be encouraged to join the British against the Ottoman Empire. Lawrence and the British used the information in forming alliances with the Arabs.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 3 March 1916, after hardly a moment's notice, Gen. Clayton sent Gertrude to Basra, which British forces had captured in November 1914, to advise Chief Political Officer Percy Cox regarding an area she knew better than any other Westerner. She drew maps to help the British army reach Baghdad safely and became the only female political officer in the British forces, receiving the title of "Liaison Officer, Correspondent to Cairo" (i.e. to the Arab Bureau where she had been assigned). She was Harry St. John Philby's field controller, and taught him the finer arts of behind-the-scenes political maneuvering.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her work was specially mentioned in the British Parliament, and she was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Some consider the present troubles in Iraq are derived from the lines Bell helped draw to create its borders. Perhaps so, but Gertrude's reports indicate that problems were foreseen, and that it was clearly understood that there were just not many (if any) permanent solutions for calming the divisive forces at work in that part of the world.</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When British troops took Baghdad (March 10, 1917), she was summoned by Cox to Baghdad and given the title of "Oriental Secretary." </span></span>As the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire was finalized by the end of the war in late January 1919, Gertrude was assigned to conduct an analysis of the situation in Mesopotamia. Due to her familiarity and relations with the tribes in the area she had strong ideas about the leadership needed in Iraq. She spent the next ten months writing what was later considered a masterful official report, "Self Determination in Mesopotamia”. A.T. Wilson, had different ideas of how Iraq should be run, preferring an Arab government to be under the influence of British officials who would retain real control.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On October 11, 1920, Percy Cox returned to Baghdad and asked her to continue as Oriental Secretary, acting as liaison with the forthcoming Arab government. Gertrude essentially played the role of mediator between the Arab government and British officials. She had to often mediate between the various groups of Iraq including a majority population of Shi’as in the southern region, Sunnis in central Iraq, and the Kurds, mostly in the northern region, who wished to be autonomous. Keeping these groups united was essential for political balance in Iraq and for British imperial interests. Iraq not only contained valuable resources in oil but would act as a buffer zone, with the help of Kurds in the north as a standing army in the region to protect against Turkey, Persia (Iran), and Syria. British officials in London, especially Churchill, were highly concerned to cut heavy costs in the colonies, including the cost of quashing tribal infighting. Another important project for both the British and new Iraqi rulers was creating a new identity for these people so that they would identify themselves as one nation.</span></span><br />
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<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Gertrude, Cox and Lawrence were among a select group of "Orientalists" convened by Winston Churchill to attend a 1921 Conference in Cairo to determine the boundaries of the British mandate and nascent states such as Iraq. Gertrude is supposed to have described Lawrence as being able "to ignite fires in cold rooms". </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throughout the conference, the two worked tirelessly to promote the establishment of the countries of Transjordan and Iraq to be presided over by the Kings Abdullah and Faisal, sons of the instigator of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire (ca. 1915-1916), Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca. Until her death in Baghdad, she served in the Iraq British High Commission advisory group there.</span></span> </div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJa6idEbspZwNVMUpy5XASnCT0szIBlBFGit-8YfDVuvWFAX0zoyN_n2XAPU-l8Jj6zYtnhi0Dfcco1KwLRNJX8xfRN5tgeumRksUJNuNohmroXjlRu1w4I472-G0PEQmSQuT-z80KndE/s1600/Cairo+Conference.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJa6idEbspZwNVMUpy5XASnCT0szIBlBFGit-8YfDVuvWFAX0zoyN_n2XAPU-l8Jj6zYtnhi0Dfcco1KwLRNJX8xfRN5tgeumRksUJNuNohmroXjlRu1w4I472-G0PEQmSQuT-z80KndE/s320/Cairo+Conference.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cairo Conference, March 1921</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seated: Winston Churchill (far right), Edmund Marshall (2nd from left)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Standing: Gertrude Bell (far left), Sassoon Eskell (2nd from left)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jafar Pasha al-Askari (far right)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">British officials quickly realized that their strategies in governing were adding to costs. Iraq would be cheaper as a self-governing state. The Cairo Conference of 1921 was held to determine the political and geographic structure of what would become Iraq and the modern Middle East. Significant input was given by Gertrude in these discussions thus she was an essential part of its creation. At the Cairo Conference Gertrude and Lawrence highly recommended Faisal bin Hussein, (the son of Hussein, Sherif of Mecca), former commander of the Arab forces that helped the British during the war and entered Damascus at the culmination of the Arab Revolt. He had been recently deposed by France as King of Syria, and British officials at the Cairo Conference decided to make him the first king of Iraq. They believed that due to his lineage as a Hashemite and his diplomatic skills he would be respected and have the ability to unite the various groups in the country. Shi'as would respect him because of his lineage from Prophet Muhammad. Sunnis, including Kurds, would follow him because he was Sunni from a respected family. Keeping all the groups under control in Iraq was essential to balance the political and economic interests of the British.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upon Faisal's arrival in 1921, Gertrude advised him in local questions, including matters involving tribal geography and local business. She also supervised the selection of appointees for cabinet and other leadership posts in the new government.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDx_8QAQIqHtBnvLVxNjWNGKzHfriEzxtEk9Q-JvYY5rAFh1dh3V7Kffm_slcyztFvj0bZLZFpL9gPaTtETngv5pkrYMkOGxu3ABHyc2HKNF8O-TzAo3I4lXBbe4XqjCHLzloAOh_u2M/s1600/King+Faisal's+Coronation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="209" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDx_8QAQIqHtBnvLVxNjWNGKzHfriEzxtEk9Q-JvYY5rAFh1dh3V7Kffm_slcyztFvj0bZLZFpL9gPaTtETngv5pkrYMkOGxu3ABHyc2HKNF8O-TzAo3I4lXBbe4XqjCHLzloAOh_u2M/s320/King+Faisal's+Coronation.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">King Faisal's Coronation</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">August 1921</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Referred to by Iraqis as "al-Khatun" (a Lady of the Court who keeps an open eye and ear for the benefit of the State), she was Faisal's confidante and helped ease his passage into the role, amongst Iraq's other tribal leaders at the start of his reign. He helped her to found Baghdad's great Iraqi Archaeological Museum from her own modest artifact collection and to establish The British School of Archaeology, Iraq, for the endowment of excavation projects from proceeds in her will. The stress of authoring a prodigious output of books, correspondence, intelligence reports, reference works, white papers; of recurring bronchitis attacks brought on by years of heavy smoking in the company of English and Arab cohorts; of bouts with malaria; and finally, of coping with Baghdad's summer heat all took a toll on her health. Somewhat frail to start with, she became nearly emaciated.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Throughout the early 1920s she was an integral part of the administration of Iraq. The new Hashemite monarchy used the Sharifian flag, which consisted of a black stripe representing the Abbasid caliphate, green stripe representing the Ummayad caliphate, and a white stripe for Fatimid Dynasty, and lastly a red triangle to set across the three bands symbolizing Islam, Bell felt it essential to customize it for Iraq by adding a gold star to the design. Faisal was crowned king of Iraq on August 23, 1921, but he was not completely welcomed. Utilizing Shi'ite history to gain support for Faisal, during the holy month of Muharram, Bell compared Faysal's arrival in Baghdad to Huysan, grandson of Prophet Muhammad.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However working with the new king was not easy: <em>"You may rely upon one thing — I'll never engage in creating kings again; it's too great a strain.”</em></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">She briefly returned to Britain in 1925, and found herself facing family problems and ill health. Her family's fortune had begun to decline due to the onset of post-World War I worker strikes in Britain and economic depression in Europe. Gertrude returned to Baghdad and soon developed pleurisy. When she recovered, she heard that her younger brother Hugo had died of typhoid. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On July 12, 1926, she was discovered dead, of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. There is much debate on her death, but it is unknown whether the overdose was an intentional suicide or accidental since she had asked her maid to wake her.</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She was buried at the British cemetery in Baghdad's Bab al-Sharji district. Her funeral was a major event, attended by large numbers of people including her colleagues, British officials and the King of Iraq. It was said King Faisal watched the procession from his private balcony as they carried her coffin to the cemetery. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Throughout her life Gertrude's first love was archaeology, thus she had begun forming what became the Baghdad Archaeological Museum, later renamed the Iraqi Museum. Her goal was to preserve Iraqi culture and history which included the important relics of Mesopotamian civilizations, and keep them in their country of origin. She also supervised excavations and examined finds and artifacts. She brought in extensive collections, such as from the Babylonian Empire. The museum was officially opened in June 1926, shortly before her death. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After her death, at the Emir's suggestion, the right wing of the Museum was named as a memorial to her.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSd_f15QtuI7xmEz84ftphZf8XUdPjNuDZWQ2uF5DuJ-MdyLB8_QG3nQzrixDNLtFm97Nu9n_CSmkXgTuAx10bbC191JGqSow4mR5c6uwJETDK-X67vZruG23VtdGd76gPxTcBTmQoquc/s1600/Memorial+Window.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSd_f15QtuI7xmEz84ftphZf8XUdPjNuDZWQ2uF5DuJ-MdyLB8_QG3nQzrixDNLtFm97Nu9n_CSmkXgTuAx10bbC191JGqSow4mR5c6uwJETDK-X67vZruG23VtdGd76gPxTcBTmQoquc/s400/Memorial+Window.jpg" width="237" /></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An obituary written by D.G. Hogarth expressed the respect British officials held for her. He honored her by saying:</span></span></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>“No woman in recent time has combined her qualities – her taste for arduous and dangerous adventure with her scientific interest and knowledge, her competence in archaeology and art, her distinguished literary gift, her sympathy for all sorts and condition of men, her political insight and appreciation of human values, her masculine vigor, hard common sense and practical efficiency – all tempered by feminine charm and a most romantic spirit”.</em></span></span></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1927 her stepmother, Florence Bell, published two volumes of Gertrude's collected correspondence, written during the 20 years preceding World War I. </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A stained glass window to her by Douglas Strachan was erected in St Lawrence's Church, East Rounton, North Yorkshire. It depicts Magdalen College, Oxford and Khadimain, Baghdad. The inscription reads:</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">This window is in remembrance of Gertrude Versed in the learning of the east and of the west Servant of the state Scholar Poet Historian Antiquary Gardener Mountaineer Explorer Lover of nature of flowers and of animals Incomparable friend sister daughter.</span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/r4h_Cx1WM-c/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/r4h_Cx1WM-c&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/r4h_Cx1WM-c&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-30565511687542547992012-03-27T16:24:00.002-04:002012-04-14T11:06:03.994-04:00Isabella Bird Bishop ~ Explorer<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi23ls93yCPfMi_hMuIuzHxd7eBWxlE6_B9fZ7ct7Yg2wnqDzOLXw1yys2abcVVzqT_8GAxyLec-qUUV0oOKDjSqF_0DoUqy03IBnFwLNsI9emTmpHKLM1BnBJMl9c_PXL02m7jwK6YGi8/s1600/Isabella+Bird+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi23ls93yCPfMi_hMuIuzHxd7eBWxlE6_B9fZ7ct7Yg2wnqDzOLXw1yys2abcVVzqT_8GAxyLec-qUUV0oOKDjSqF_0DoUqy03IBnFwLNsI9emTmpHKLM1BnBJMl9c_PXL02m7jwK6YGi8/s320/Isabella+Bird+2.jpg" width="186" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wearing Manchurian clothing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from a journey through China.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Isabella Lucy Bird</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (October 15, 1831 – October 7, 1904) was a nineteenth-century English explorer, writer and natural historian. She was born in Boroughbridge in 1831 and grew up in Tattenhall, Cheshire. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As her father Edward was a Church of England minister, the family moved several times across Britain as he received different parish postings, most notably in 1848 when he was replaced as vicar of St. Thomas' when his parishioners objected to the style of his ministry.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She was a sickly child and spent her entire life struggling with various diseases. Much of her illness may have been psychogenic, for when she was doing exactly what she wanted she was almost never ill. Her real desire was to travel. In 1854, her father gave her £100 and sent her to visit relatives in America. She was allowed to stay until her money ran out. She detailed the journey anonymously in her first book <i>The Englishwoman in America</i>, published in 1856. The following year, she went to Canada and then toured Scotland.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Time spent in Britain always seemed to make her ill and, following her mother's death in 1868, she embarked on a series of excursions to avoid settling permanently with her sister Henrietta (Henny) on the Isle of Mull. Bird could not endure her sister's domestic lifestyle, preferring instead to support further travels through writing. Many of her works are compiled from letters she wrote home to her sister in Scotland.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She left Britain in 1872, going first to Australia (which she disliked) and then to Hawaii, known in Europe as the Sandwich Islands. While there she climbed Mauna Loa. Her love for Hawaii prompted her second book (published three years later). In 1873 she traveled to Colorado, at that time the newest member of the United States, where she had heard the air was excellent for the infirm. Dressed practically and riding frontwards like a man (though she threatened to sue the <i>Times</i> for saying she dressed like one), she covered over 800 miles in the Rocky Mountains. Her letters to her sister, first printed in the magazine <i>Leisure Hour</i>, comprised her fourth and perhaps most famous book, <i>A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains</i>.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Isabella’s time in the Rockies was enlivened especially by her acquaintance with Jim Nugent, ‘Rocky Mountain Jim’, a textbook outlaw with one eye and an affinity for violence and poetry. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"A man any woman might love but no sane woman would marry,"</i> she declared in a section excised from her letters before their publication. Nugent also seemed captivated by the independent-minded Isabella, but she ultimately left the Rockies and her "dear desperado." Nugent was shot dead less than a year later.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">At home, Isabella again found herself pursued, this time by John Bishop, an Edinburgh doctor in his thirties. Predictably ill, she went traveling again, this time to Asia: Japan, China, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia. When her sister died of typhoid in 1880, Isabella was heartbroken and finally accepted Bishop's marriage proposal. Her health took a severe turn for the worse but recovered by Bishop's own death in 1886. Feeling that her earlier travels had been hopelessly dilettante, Isabella studied medicine and resolved to travel as a missionary. Despite her nearly 60 years of age, she set off for India.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Arriving on the subcontinent in February 1889, Bird visited missions in India, crossed Tibet and then travelled in Persia, Kurdistan and Turkey. The following year she joined a group of British soldiers traveling between Baghdad and Tehran. She remained with the unit's commanding officer during his survey work in the region, armed with her revolver and a medicine chest supplied – in possibly an early example of corporate sponsorship – by Henry Wellcome's company in London.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Featured in journals and magazines for decades, she was by now something of a household name. In 1892, she became the first woman inducted into the Royal Geographical Society. She was elected to membership of the Royal Photographic Society on January 12, 1897. Her final great journey took place in 1897 when she traveled up the Yangtze and Han rivers which are in China and Korea, respectively. Later, she went to Morocco where she traveled among the Berbers and had to use a ladder to mount her black stallion, a gift from the Sultan. She died in Edinburgh within a few months of her return in 1904, just shy of her 73rd birthday. She was still planning another trip to China.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"There never was anybody," wrote the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spectator</i>, "who had adventures as well as Miss Bird."</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/C4lZ3MSxjBg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-31575262194941835592012-03-26T16:45:00.001-04:002012-04-14T10:54:22.732-04:00Nellie Bly ~ Daring just the same!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesooNqhLj2eLRJ7nuAAC2e_haOrmmcrTFtlPkucWDdL_D4lym1NDSw6L8mJyljoEvz3XaCTA1uKqcCP0pK1eCLhqNCf2rRqK2B0G9V1VOQuBO92gjcLS2PQ688ZxiyNvlvMQEoLPQ4gw/s1600/Nellie+Bly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesooNqhLj2eLRJ7nuAAC2e_haOrmmcrTFtlPkucWDdL_D4lym1NDSw6L8mJyljoEvz3XaCTA1uKqcCP0pK1eCLhqNCf2rRqK2B0G9V1VOQuBO92gjcLS2PQ688ZxiyNvlvMQEoLPQ4gw/s200/Nellie+Bly.jpg" width="167" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Nellie Bly</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922) was the pen name of American pioneer female journalist <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Elizabeth Jane Cochran</span>. She remains notable for two feats: a record-breaking trip around the world in emulation of Jules Verne's character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. In addition to her writing, she was also an industrialist and charity worker. Her name was meant to be Nelly Bly, but her editor wrote Nellie Bly and it stuck.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Born as Elizabeth Jane Cochran in Cochran's Mills, PA she was nicknamed "Pinky" for wearing that color as a child. Her father, Michael, began as a modest laborer and mill worker. He then bought the mill and all the land around his family farmhouse. He eventually owned so much land that the town was named Cochran's Mills. Her mother, Mary Jane, stayed at home and raised her stepsons and stepdaughters. As a teenager Elizabeth changed her surname to <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Cochrane</span>, apparently adding the "e" for sophistication. She attended boarding school for one term, but dropped out because of a lack of funds. In 1880, Nellie and her family moved to Pittsburgh. A sexist column in the <i>Pittsburgh Dispatch</i> prompted her to write a fiery rebuttal to the editor with the pen name "Lonely Orphan Girl." The editor was so impressed with her earnestness and spirit that he asked the man who wrote the letter to join the paper. When he learned the man was Elizabeth he refused to give her the job, but she was a good talker and persuaded him. Female newspaper writers at that time customarily used pen names, and for Elizabeth the editor chose "Nellie Bly", adopted from the title character in the popular song "Nelly Bly" by Stephen Foster.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nellie focused her early work for the <i>Dispatch</i> on the plight of working women, writing a series of investigative articles on female factory workers. But editorial pressure pushed her to the so-called "women's pages" to cover fashion, society and gardening, the usual role for female journalists of the day. Dissatisfied with these duties, she took the initiative and traveled to Mexico to serve as a foreign correspondent. Still only 21, she spent nearly half a year reporting the lives and customs of the Mexican people; her dispatches were later published in book form as <i>Six Months in Mexico</i>. In one report, she protested the imprisonment of a local journalist for criticizing the Mexican government, then a dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz. When Mexican authorities learned of Bly's report, they threatened her with arrest, prompting her to leave the country. Safely home, she denounced Díaz as a tyrannical czar suppressing the Mexican people and controlling the press.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKCgOyFoc9UmjC1mIp_MC1Kx0Gsf324Wb4nkeiN-NZOTuoFgkhxLKARfB8dwMo3yGesI33CfvVpd0iuoYp9oyIk1fDP3cf101LSNxf1RJiq0Zfkry2NTneqYqf4SUn6FitKRhUbbVgCQ/s1600/Nellie+Bly+Insane.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKCgOyFoc9UmjC1mIp_MC1Kx0Gsf324Wb4nkeiN-NZOTuoFgkhxLKARfB8dwMo3yGesI33CfvVpd0iuoYp9oyIk1fDP3cf101LSNxf1RJiq0Zfkry2NTneqYqf4SUn6FitKRhUbbVgCQ/s200/Nellie+Bly+Insane.png" width="190" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Burdened again with theater and arts reporting, Nellie left the <i>Pittsburgh Dispatch</i> in 1887 for New York City. Penniless after four months, she talked her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the <i>New York World</i>, and took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">After a night of practicing deranged expressions in front of a mirror, she checked into a working-class boardinghouse. She refused to go to bed, telling the boarders that she was afraid of them and that they looked crazy. They soon decided that <i>she</i> was crazy, and the next morning summoned the police. Taken to a courtroom, she pretended to have amnesia. The judge concluded she had been drugged.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She was then examined by several doctors, who all declared her to be insane. "Positively demented," said one, "I consider it a hopeless case. She needs to be put where someone will take care of her.” The head of the insane pavilion at Bellevue Hospital pronounced her "undoubtedly insane". The case of the "pretty crazy girl" attracted media attention: "Who Is This Insane Girl?" asked the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Sun</i>. <i>The New York Times</i> wrote of the "mysterious waif" with the "wild, hunted look in her eyes", and her desperate cry: "I can't remember I can't remember.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Committed to the asylum, Nellie experienced its conditions firsthand. The food consisted of gruel broth, spoiled beef, bread that was little more than dried dough and dirty undrinkable water. The dangerous patients were tied together with ropes. The patients were made to sit for much of each day on hard benches with scant protection from the cold. Waste was all around the eating places. Rats crawled all around the hospital. The bathwater was frigid, and buckets of it were poured over their heads. The nurses were obnoxious and abusive, telling the patients to shut up, and beating them if they did not. Speaking with her fellow patients, Nellie was convinced that some were as sane as she was. On the effect of her experiences, she wrote:</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">…My teeth chattered and my limbs were …numb with cold. Suddenly, I got three buckets of ice-cold water…one in my eyes, nose and mouth.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">After ten days, Nellie was released from the asylum at <i>The World'</i>s behest. Her report, later published in book form as <i>Ten Days in a Mad-House</i>, caused a sensation and brought her lasting fame. While embarrassed physicians and staff fumbled to explain how so many professionals had been fooled, a grand jury launched its own investigation into conditions at the asylum, inviting Nellie to assist. The jury's report recommended the changes she had proposed, and its call for increased funds for care of the insane prompted an $850,000 increase in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections. They also made sure that future examinations were more thorough so that only the seriously ill actually went to the asylum.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9slExqeFDjVWTc4UgJM74aqTgsYKdA8v8PtWpa-iSqklifFUf_XYS6mwbyOZ-pqQ7Y3Hi1iskaucAMI-X1mqJa6K7eVjf59yhLAs5rwQBbnCI6eC6m7lpEhElQ8AoXUOEs9bwwUng3Q/s1600/Nellie+Bly+Around+the+World.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9slExqeFDjVWTc4UgJM74aqTgsYKdA8v8PtWpa-iSqklifFUf_XYS6mwbyOZ-pqQ7Y3Hi1iskaucAMI-X1mqJa6K7eVjf59yhLAs5rwQBbnCI6eC6m7lpEhElQ8AoXUOEs9bwwUng3Q/s320/Nellie+Bly+Around+the+World.jpg" width="177" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1888, Nellie suggested to her editor at the <i>New York World</i> that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days into fact for the first time. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days' notice, she boarded the <i>Augusta Victoria</i>, a steamer of the Hamburg America Line, and began her 24,899-mile journey.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She brought with her the dress she was wearing, a sturdy overcoat, several changes of underwear and a small travel bag carrying her toiletry essentials. She carried most of her money (£200 in English bank notes and gold in total as well as some American currency) in a bag tied around her neck.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The New York newspaper <i>Cosmopolitan</i> sponsored its own reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, to beat the time of both Phileas Fogg and Nellie. Bisland would travel the opposite way around the world. To sustain interest in the story, the <i>World</i> organized a “Nellie Bly Guessing Match” in which readers were asked to estimate her arrival time to the second, with the Grand Prize consisting at first of (only) a free trip to Europe and, later on, spending money for the trip.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">On her travels around the world, Nellie went through England, France (where she met Jules Verne in Amiens), Brindisi, the Suez Canal, Colombo (Ceylon), the Straits Settlements of Penang and Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. The development of efficient submarine cable networks and the electric telegraph allowed her to send short progress reports, though longer dispatches had to travel by regular post and were thus often delayed by several weeks.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nellie traveled using steamships and the existing railroad systems, which caused occasional setbacks, particularly on the Asian leg of her race. During these stops, she visited a leper colony in China and she bought a monkey in Singapore.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">As a result of rough weather on her Pacific crossing, she arrived in San Francisco on the White Star liner <i>Oceanic</i> on January 21, two days behind schedule. However, <i>World</i> owner Pulitzer chartered a private train to bring her home, and she arrived back in New Jersey on January 25, 1890, at 3:51 p.m.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds after her Hoboken departure" Nellie was back in New York. She had circumnavigated the globe almost unchaperoned. At the time, Bisland was still going around the world. Like Nellie, she had missed a connection and had to board a slow, old ship (the <i>Bothina</i>) in the place of a fast ship (<i>Etruria</i>). Nellie’s journey was a world record, though it was bettered a few months later by George Francis Train, who completed the journey in 67 days. By 1913, Andre Jaeger-Schmidt, Henry Frederick and John Henry Mears had improved on the record, the latter completing the journey in less than 36 days.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7SSR5jJSczwKBpbc4jEv-4hCah7M0iz-uzrRGmpf2tkUO2YXZ5zAtRkKQ7ek7XDDnDKLbfBqTXdVX4qz9bNoorfLqhmGPbxmB_y-MArc6kUSZLbpCD2Q5_XxCBHtaiaoiLBa_s1TE58s/s1600/Nellie+Bly+Milk+Can.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7SSR5jJSczwKBpbc4jEv-4hCah7M0iz-uzrRGmpf2tkUO2YXZ5zAtRkKQ7ek7XDDnDKLbfBqTXdVX4qz9bNoorfLqhmGPbxmB_y-MArc6kUSZLbpCD2Q5_XxCBHtaiaoiLBa_s1TE58s/s200/Nellie+Bly+Milk+Can.png" width="147" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1895 Nellie married millionaire manufacturer Robert Seaman, who was 40 years her senior. She retired from journalism, and became the president of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co., which made steel containers such as milk cans and boilers. In 1904, her husband died. In the same year, Iron Clad began manufacturing the steel barrel that was the model for the 55-gallon oil drum still in widespread use in the United States. Although there have been claims that Nellie invented the barrel, the inventor is believed to have been Henry Wehrhahn, who likely assigned his invention to her. (US Patents 808,327 and 808,413). Nellie was, however, an inventor in her own right, receiving US patent 697,553 for a novel milk can and US patent 703,711 for a stacking garbage can, both under her married name of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman. For a time she was one of the leading female industrialists in the United States, but embezzlement by employees forced her into bankruptcy. Forced back into reporting, she covered such events as the Women's Suffrage Convention in 1913, and stories on Europe's Eastern Front during World War I.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1916 Nellie was given a baby boy whose mother requested Nellie look after him and see that he become adopted. The child was illegitimate and difficult to place since he was half-Japanese. He spent the next six years in an orphanage run by the Church For All Nations in Manhattan.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">As Nellie became ill towards the end of her life she requested that her niece, Beatrice Brown, look after the boy and several other babies in whom she had become interested. Her interest in orphanages may have been part of her ongoing efforts to improve the social organizations of the day.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She died of pneumonia at St. Mark's Hospital in New York City in 1922, at age 57.<u><sup><span style="color: blue;">]</span></sup></u> She was interred in a modest grave at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-39083243968293140482012-03-26T16:30:00.001-04:002012-04-14T10:54:41.874-04:00Louise Arner Boyd ~ Explorer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4WQUINU8ykPPSsW0epIasZb9h10fyAOJ6pxs3zgWtyeitMlW4KSRJgbLx7WlHMePKEFQOUQKl76gJN_ReK5kxWv2mbBcTGa2zkieq5oV2VZJ-VXw-YHi8YuxFmwYfiK9qpUV9K4ZMTrg/s1600/Louise+Boyd+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4WQUINU8ykPPSsW0epIasZb9h10fyAOJ6pxs3zgWtyeitMlW4KSRJgbLx7WlHMePKEFQOUQKl76gJN_ReK5kxWv2mbBcTGa2zkieq5oV2VZJ-VXw-YHi8YuxFmwYfiK9qpUV9K4ZMTrg/s200/Louise+Boyd+1.jpg" width="140" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Louise Arner Boyd</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (September 16, 1887 – September 14, 1972) was an American explorer of Greenland and the Arctic, who wrote extensively of her explorations. In 1955 she became the first woman to fly over the North Pole, privately chartering a DC-4 and crew that included aviation pioneer Thor Solberg.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Born in San Rafael, CA to John Franklin Boyd and Louise Cook Arner, owners and heirs to the Bodie Gold Bonanza of 1877, Louise grew up in Marin County, San Francisco and the hills of Oakland playing and competing with her two older brothers, Seth and John. The Boyds were leading citizens of the era and their children's early years, though privileged and relatively carefree, included a well-rounded education that was punctuated every summer by an extended stay on their ranch in the Oakland Hills. It was here where Louise and her brothers rode horses, explored Mt. Diablo, fished, hunted, camped and generally led a rugged and adventurous life. When Louise was a teenager, both of her brothers died from heart disease within a few months of each other. Her parents were devastated and began to lean heavily on Louise for care and comfort. It was at this time that they bequeathed to the City of San Rafael their former gatehouse and some of the family property as a memorial to their two sons … the Victorian-style building is now the home of the Marin History Museum. Upon the death of her parents in 1919 and 1920, Louise inherited the family fortune after caring for her parents in the last few years of their lives.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">With her inheritance Louise could control her own destiny and indulge her intrepid spirit developed during her active California childhood where she rode horses and competed and played with her two older brothers. She began to travel in the early 1920s, and on a trip to Norway in 1924 she cruised out to sea and saw the Polar Ice Pack for the first time. This experience proved instrumental in her life and she immediately began planning her own Arctic adventure.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQW6em0BCkg9FxDvaqXJGIvtkmouoXUsH0a2nEPHb8jnMJutXewi93KnFTza_DSupkmmFwNbcJcfjKjVOXEtkLtNnOevOV4cjR-tZHVLd-8am-Pyb9HebLgz-Eb61GELTfK3irJKcMUhs/s1600/Louise+Boyd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQW6em0BCkg9FxDvaqXJGIvtkmouoXUsH0a2nEPHb8jnMJutXewi93KnFTza_DSupkmmFwNbcJcfjKjVOXEtkLtNnOevOV4cjR-tZHVLd-8am-Pyb9HebLgz-Eb61GELTfK3irJKcMUhs/s200/Louise+Boyd.jpg" width="200" /></a><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1925 she was presented to the King and Queen of England and soon after in 1926 she chartered the supply ship <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hobby</i> which had been used by famous explorer Roald Amundsen, for a hunting and filming trip to the Arctic. She gained international notoriety for her exploits (and hunting of polar bears) and was dubbed by newspapers around the world, as the, “Arctic Diana” and “The Girl Who Tamed the Arctic”.</span></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1928 she was planning a second pleasure trip aboard the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hobby</i> when it was learned that the famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had recently disappeared in his own attempt to find and rescue the Italian explorer Umberto Nobile. Louise offered her services and the ship to the Norwegian government to search for Amundsen, saying, “How could I go on a pleasure trip when those 22 lives were at stake?” Although she traveled about 10,000 miles across the Arctic Ocean, she found no trace of him. Nevertheless, the Norwegian government awarded her the Chevalier Cross of the Order of Saint Olav. "She was the first American woman to receive the order and the third woman in the world to be so honored."</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Louise was probably best known for leading a series of scientific expeditions to the east and north-east coasts of Greenland in 1931, 1933, 1937 & 1938 (sponsored by the American Geographical Society). She described the 1933 expedition in her 1935 book <i>The Fiord Region of East Greenland</i>. An area near the De Geer Glacier was later named Louise Boyd Land.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In August 1934, after being elected as a delegate to the International Geographical Congress in Warsaw, Poland Louise set out on a 3-month journey across the Polish countryside photographing and recording the customs, dress, economy and culture of the many ethnic Poles and Russians in the newly formed nation. The journey, by car, rail, boat and on foot took her first from Lviv to Kovel (these towns are in the Ukraine today), and then to Kobrin, Pinsk, Kletsk, Nesvizh and Slonim (these towns are in Belarus today). She finished the journey in Vilno. Her travel narrative was supplemented with over 500 photographs and published by the American Geographical Society in 1937.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The knowledge she had gained on her numerous expeditions to Greenland and the Arctic became very valuable after World War II broke out. The United States government requested that she not publish a book she was writing based on her 1937 and 1938 expeditions. Instead she was sent at the head of an expedition to investigate magnetic and radio phenomena in the Arctic, and in 1941 she organized an expedition for the National Bureau of Standards) chartering the <i>Effie M. Morrissey</i> and paying for the ship and crew herself as well as for the food and supplies. The expedition and its findings were helpful in the war effort and she received an official commendation from the National Bureau of Standards for her work. During the remainder of the war she worked on secret assignments for the U.S. Department of the Army." Her earlier book that had been held from publication, <i>The Coast of Northeast Greenland</i>, was published in 1948, after the war had ended. In 1949 she received the Department of Army Certificate of Appreciation.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Later in life Louise was an active and well-known Marin figure and hostess while serving as a member of the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Symphony. She accumulated many academic honors, receiving an honorary law degree from the University of California, Berkeley and from Mills College. Louise was the second woman ever to receive the Cullum Medal of the American Geographical Society and in 1960 was the first woman to be elected to their board. She was made an honorary member of the California Academy of Science. Near the end of her life, Louise made some bad investments and had already spent much of her fortune outfitting and chartering her many explorations. Eventually she had to sell the family home in San Rafael and all her furniture. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">She died in San Francisco on September 14, 1972.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-65045841422688682792012-03-25T17:00:00.024-04:002012-04-14T10:54:59.560-04:00Marguerite "Meta" Brevoort ~ Mountaineer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgHeZ3-tEEprdiYXXIJzyMC19XwbmyzXYzPUFPHlifPy6y2O-AFjoOypOypwSbxDN4jIdtrICUWjFZptRY78qQZria2UWW1STxHMY4gz_E6Z5rJOdAqC2yKZrJzmoMT3_dwgiMYc7E9M/s1600/Brevoort.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgHeZ3-tEEprdiYXXIJzyMC19XwbmyzXYzPUFPHlifPy6y2O-AFjoOypOypwSbxDN4jIdtrICUWjFZptRY78qQZria2UWW1STxHMY4gz_E6Z5rJOdAqC2yKZrJzmoMT3_dwgiMYc7E9M/s200/Brevoort.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meta with Christian Almer (L),</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">his son Ulrich, her nephew</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William (R) and Tschingel</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Marguerite "Meta" Brevoort</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (1825–1876), an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">American</span></a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_climber" title="Mountain climber"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">mountain climber</span></a>, spent her early years in a Paris convent school. She made a number of important ascents in the Alps in the 1860s and 1870s, but was thwarted in her two greatest alpine ambitions: to be the first woman to climb the Matterhorn, and the first person to climb the Meije in the Dauphiné. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Her role-model and rival was Lucy Walker, who began her considerable mountaineering career at the age of 28 in 1859, and it was Walker who, hearing that Meta planned an expedition to the Matterhorn in 1871, quickly assembled a party that included the famous guide, Melchior Anderegg and made the summit a few days before Meta arrived in Zermatt. In contrast to Walker, who always wore dresses, Meta was the first female mountaineer to wear trousers.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Meta was the aunt of William A. Coolidge, whom she brought to Europe in 1865 and introduced to alpine climbing. Coolidge eventually became an outstanding mountaineer, with over 1,700 ascents in the Alps, and the greatest alpine historian of the Victorian age. The two climbed together for over ten seasons, and were joined in many of their adventures by "Tschingel", a small dog their guide Christian Almer gave to William. Later, she would proudly refer to their canine companion as the only "Honorary Lady member of the Alpine Club".</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She and Coolidge journeyed to the Dauphiné several times in order to attempt the Meije, but encountered bad weather each trip. In 1876, she had her final opportunity for a first ascent, but instead stayed in the Oberland in order to give more money to her nephew in support of his efforts in the range. A few months later she died.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-69015225655771323812012-03-25T16:45:00.011-04:002012-04-14T10:55:17.584-04:00Lily Bristow ~ Mountaineer<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>"Non Mademoiselle, pas possible!" ~ 19th Century Hotel Staff to Lily </strong></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Barstow</strong></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>(after being told that she just climbed the Rothorn without guides)</em></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the 1870s, several women’s names appear among the Alpinists, but it was not until the 1890s that a climber to equal, and possibly surpass, Lucy Walker was seen in the Alps. Lily Bristow was a close friend of A.F. Mummery and his wife, Mary. Mummery was considered by many to be the greatest climber of the Victorian Age. In 1892, along with Mummery and three other men and a Miss Pasteur, Lily climbed the Charmoz and, in the next several years, participated in a number of major climbs including the first descent of the Zmutt Ridge of the Matterhorn. This was to be her last great climb. <br />
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Lily was a woman of strength and conviction, and it was she who taught Mummery “that in mountaineering, as in all the other varied affairs of life, ‘l’homme propose mais femme dispose’.” When she decided to climb the Zinal Rothorn, considered a difficult climb, Mummery went with her despite the long walk to the mountain. Although a superb climber, he hated walking and tried, all the way to the peak, to get Lily to turn back. Victorian social convention forbade his just saying no, or turning back without her, but he must have enjoyed it when, on their return to the hotel, the guests told Lily she was mistaken, she must have climbed some small hillock, it could not have been the Rothorn. <br />
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When she traversed the Grepon (it had only been done once, the previous year, and by Mummery) she managed to carry with her a heavy plate camera to photograph the expedition. Mummery’s description makes it clear that she was courageous, competent and willing to do her share and more. At one point the camera was lowered to a particularly precarious perch. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Miss Bristow promptly followed, scorning the proffered rope. On this aerial perch we then proceeded to set up the camera, and the lady of the party, surrounded on three sides by nothing and blocked in front with the camera, made ready to seize the moment when an unfortunate climber should be in his least elegant attitude and transfix him forever.” </span></span></div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her skill in rock climbing, on that same assault, was sufficient to lead Mummery to remark that she “showed the representatives of the Alpine Club the way in which steep rocks should be climbed,” and when the other members of the party stopped to recover their wind, Lily took photographs. It was hardly “an easy day for a lady,” in fact, Mummery ranked it amongst the hardest climbs he had made.<br />
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With the death of Mummery in the Himalayas in August of 1895, Lily lost all incentive to climb and faded from the list of notable Alpinists.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-47858519008283116882012-03-25T16:15:00.001-04:002012-04-12T10:01:31.803-04:00For the female mountaineering pioneers, it was an uphill struggle<div class="stand-first-alone" id="stand-first"><strong><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the early days of mountaineering, women shunned skirts and social norms to reach some of the highest peaks.</span></strong></div><div class="stand-first-alone"><br />
</div><div class="stand-first-alone"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Susanna Jones</span></div><div class="stand-first-alone"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">www.guardian.co.uk</span></a></div><div class="stand-first-alone"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Monday 26 March 2012</span></div><div class="stand-first-alone"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQfHYirPUyc9pIxo6QOYn-fWKMRNT5PknAxV05Be43ZLHIud4dlX3lPtvVGXN-hwqUxva_BGSTcV_cBuD2m-Ej2JYsVeyC7I7I0e0U3W44Kg5vCy7KajJ2ZIjFxicqwMd7aCsfQ6y31E/s1600/Photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQfHYirPUyc9pIxo6QOYn-fWKMRNT5PknAxV05Be43ZLHIud4dlX3lPtvVGXN-hwqUxva_BGSTcV_cBuD2m-Ej2JYsVeyC7I7I0e0U3W44Kg5vCy7KajJ2ZIjFxicqwMd7aCsfQ6y31E/s320/Photo+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mountains offered solitude, danger and freedom ... a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">female mountaineer climbs a rock face in the 1930s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photograph: Getty Images</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="stand-first-alone"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mountains pass through three different phases, according to Victorian mountaineer AF Mummery: "inaccessible peak", "the most difficult ascent in the Alps" or "an easy day for a lady". In other words, once a great peak had been climbed and was no longer deemed out of reach, any ordinary person might have a go – even a woman – and the mountain's greatness was gone.</span></div><div id="article-body-blocks" sizcache="0" sizset="50"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was not that people thought women couldn't climb. Mummery made the comments on Lily Bristow's ascent of the Grepon in 1893. Lucy Walker had climbed the Matterhorn in 1871, just six years after Edward Whymper led the first ascent. Mummery's own wife, Mary, was also a talented climber and their ascent of the Teufelsgrat in a thunderstorm was one of the great </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">mountaineering</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> feats of the day. Mummery's remark acknowledged the sentiment that once a woman has achieved some physical feat it's, well, no longer much of a feat. She's rather gone and spoiled things for the chaps.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The golden age of Alpine mountaineering in the 19th century made heroes of climbers such as Edward Whymper and Leslie Stephen. Their successes and disasters thrilled and outraged the British public. Lily Bristow and Lucy Walker were among the many Victorian and Edwardian women who also took to the rope for some Alpine adventure. Albeit in smaller numbers than the men, they reached some of the toughest Alpine peaks and passes. Lily </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bristow</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> scandalised acquaintances by sharing a tent with men. Gertrude Bell was praised by her guide and members of the Alpine Club for her courage and was credited with saving men's lives on a failed attempt at the Finsteraarhorn.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the turn of the 20th century, life for an ordinary young middle-class woman in Britain was often a stultifying wait at home for a husband, or perhaps caring for elderly parents or relatives. Suffragettes showed their antipathy to sport by digging up golf courses – obvious bastions of male power even if women played golf too – and protesting at the Epsom Derby. Yet women and girls, suffragists and suffragettes among them, took part in sport from hockey and tennis to fly-fishing, fox-hunting and rock-climbing. Sport flourished at women's colleges where exercise was deemed important for study. A small number of women competed in the 1908 London Olympics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, in the world of explorers, Scott and Shackleton were back and forth to Antarctica and there were plans for a first British attempt on Everest. It was exciting, inspiring stuff and there's no doubt that women were inspired too. Schoolgirls wrote to Shackleton asking to be allowed to join his team. Marie Stopes wanted to go to Antarctica with Scott to find fossils of seed ferns for her paleobotanical research. As we know, these continued to be men-only affairs, but women with enough good fortune and money – or in some cases an illness that required a spell of recovery in fresh mountain air – could head for the Alps, or further, and climb. Some were sisters or friends, unmarried and not needed for caring duties at home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many were in their 30s or 40s when they began climbing. There were several husband-and-wife teams like the Mummerys. American explorer and mountaineer Fanny Bullock Workman climbed and cycled through the Alps and the Himalayas with her husband Dr William Hunter Workman just behind, in this case more a wife-and-husband team.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The mountains offered solitude, danger and freedom. There was etiquette too, of course, some of which lasted all the way to the summit and some didn't. Attitudes to women's dress were varied. Walker is said to have worn a white frock on all her climbs whereas Workman wore breeches and thought skirts ludicrous.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who chose to wear dresses, there was a range of possible skirt-related incidents and disasters to bear in mind. The Matterhorn's Col Felicité, for example, was named after Felicité Carrel whose 1867 attempt at the summit with her father was thwarted when her skirts ballooned in the wind and it was too dangerous to go on. A common compromise was to wear a skirt or dress as one left the hotel, then rip it off at the base of the mountain and climb in more sensible bifurcated garments. Mrs </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aubrey Le Blond</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> set off on a traverse of the Rothorn with her guide and porter, came down the other side and realised that her skirt was still on the summit. There was no choice but to re-ascend and return to their starting point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some were feminists and suffragists. Some were not bothered about politics and just climbed. Many left little record of themselves or their views. The Alpine Club, formed in 1857, did not admit women as members, so, in 1907, women founded the Ladies Alpine Club. It had rooms at the Grand Central Hotel, Marylebone. The matriarch of Edwardian mountaineering, Le Blond was its first president and Walker one of its first members.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's a photograph of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fanny Bullock Workman</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> taken in the Himalayas in 1912. She stands on the Siachen glacier at an altitude of about 6,400m. She's holding a newspaper with the words "Votes for Women" clearly visible. Whether waving a banner in the Himalayas was likely to have made much difference to the cause of universal suffrage in the US or Britain is open to question, but a hundred years on, it reminds us, at least, that she was there.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-41721819195755951462012-03-24T16:23:00.002-04:002012-04-14T11:06:55.907-04:00Isabelle Eberhardt ~ Explorer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_fQIOoras_zrWHdWvzEfWx0D3FZyGTZ6mm7BW6siLjWYmdXSBmd-TwE-AVX7BD2XIhyphenhyphen9xNJDFpgTlFdvgSQGc6IjvQC8jwXMtABGcwZ0pidigjkIr8zchTvQdCSgKix9tRHqrpy3XBt8/s1600/Isabelle+Eberhardt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_fQIOoras_zrWHdWvzEfWx0D3FZyGTZ6mm7BW6siLjWYmdXSBmd-TwE-AVX7BD2XIhyphenhyphen9xNJDFpgTlFdvgSQGc6IjvQC8jwXMtABGcwZ0pidigjkIr8zchTvQdCSgKix9tRHqrpy3XBt8/s200/Isabelle+Eberhardt.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Isabelle Eberhardt</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (February 17, 1877 – October 21, 1904) was a Swiss explorer and writer who lived and traveled extensively in North Africa. For the time she was an extremely liberated individual who rejected conventional European morality in favor of her own path and that of Islam. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She was born in Geneva, Switzerland to an aristocratic Lutheran Baltic German-Russian mother, Nathalie Moerder (Eberhardt) and an Armenian-born father, Alexandre Trophimowsky, anarchist and ex-priest. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Isabelle's mother had been married to elderly widower General Pavel de Moerder, who held important Imperial positions. After bearing him two sons and a daughter she traveled to Switzerland to convalesce, taking along her stepson and her own children, with their tutor Trophimowsky. Soon after arriving in Geneva she gave birth again, to Isabelle's brother Augustin. Four months later Pavel died of a heart attack. Nathalie elected to remain in Switzerland and, four years later, Isabelle was born and registered as her "illegitimate" daughter to avoid acknowledging Trophimowsky's paternity. Later in life, Isabelle's illegitimacy caused her emotional and financial troubles, preventing her inheritance and contributing to her feelings of estrangement from her siblings, who hated her father. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Despite this, Isabelle was well educated, becoming fluent in Arabic and many other languages. From an early age she dressed as a man in order to enjoy the greater freedom this allowed her.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Her first trip to North Africa was with her mother in May, 1897. On this journey they were attempting to set up a new life, and while doing so both converted to Islam, fulfilling a long-standing interest. Her mother died suddenly in Annaba and was buried there under the name of Fatma Mannoubia. Shortly after her mother's death, Isabelle took the side of local Muslims in violent fighting against colonial rule by the French.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1899 Trophimowsky, who had been nursed by Isabelle, died in Geneva of throat cancer. She had nothing in common with her brothers and, following the suicide of her half-brother Vladimir and the marriage of her brother Augustin to a French woman ("Augustin is once and for all headed for life's beaten tracks”), her ties to her former life were all but severed. From then on, as recorded in her journals, she spent most of the rest of her life in Africa, making northern Algeria her home and exploring the desert. She also spent some time in Tunisia.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxgDacsEKDYU_CV9FEs3ihlrG0rkekUlyAcJqy3ZYpa09Djtsj3jNMrECvmDwH1cNcBCPcY1foxlrUAHvkSrYFi97ipDL3UERt9_p6nUkGfWE0VjZTa12MP812ByKQOmelcaQyy77v7A/s1600/Isabelle2.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxgDacsEKDYU_CV9FEs3ihlrG0rkekUlyAcJqy3ZYpa09Djtsj3jNMrECvmDwH1cNcBCPcY1foxlrUAHvkSrYFi97ipDL3UERt9_p6nUkGfWE0VjZTa12MP812ByKQOmelcaQyy77v7A/s200/Isabelle2.bmp" width="135" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Dressed as a man, she called herself ‘<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Si Mahmoud Essadi’</span>, and traveled in Arab society with a freedom she could not otherwise have experienced. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">During her travels she made contact with a secret Sufi brotherhood, the Qadiriyya. They were heavily involved in helping the poor and needy while fighting against the injustices of colonial rule. At the beginning of 1901, in Behima, she was attacked by a man with a sabre in an apparent attempt to assassinate her. Her arm was nearly severed, but she later forgave the man and successfully pleaded for his life to be spared. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">On October 17 1901, Isabelle married in Marseille to Slimane Ehnni, an Algerian soldier. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She started working as a war reporter in the South of Oran in 1903 and wrote on her travels in many books and French newspapers, including <i>Nouvelles Algériennes</i> (<em>Algerian Short Stories</em>) (1905), <i>Dans l'Ombre Chaude de l'Islam</i> (<em>In the Warm Shadow of Islam</em>) (1906), and <i>Les journaliers</i> (<em>The Day Laborers</em>) (1922).</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She died at age 27 in a flash flood in Aïn Séfra, Algeria: After a long separation, Slimane had just joined her and she had rented a house for the occasion. The house, which was constructed of clay, collapsed on the couple during the flood; Isabelle managed to save her husband but perished herself. Slimane died in 1907.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-63975013938164745962012-03-23T16:23:00.001-04:002012-04-11T16:07:50.566-04:00Isabel Gramesón y Bruno Godin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NwgNIlX9vLmAqtc5Vd8pfK0IpkgIkedH0xFMUxQkeytPDJAHlIPvOoMScNgILc-GzmZv0D9QZN8dUVk2aw1Xlv5bYlTtOyGCrrvdH8Kdy9BojEvr6c3vscrrmtZqMlkViUPePV8cNAc/s1600/Isabella+Godin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NwgNIlX9vLmAqtc5Vd8pfK0IpkgIkedH0xFMUxQkeytPDJAHlIPvOoMScNgILc-GzmZv0D9QZN8dUVk2aw1Xlv5bYlTtOyGCrrvdH8Kdy9BojEvr6c3vscrrmtZqMlkViUPePV8cNAc/s200/Isabella+Godin.jpg" width="156" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Isabel Bruno Godin des Odinais </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(1728 - September 28, 1792) was an 18th-century woman who became separated from her husband in South America by colonial politics, and was not reunited with him until more than 20 years later. Her long journey, from western Peru to the mouth of the Amazon River, is without equal in the history of South America. Her story has been often repeated and inspired popular misconceptions of the dangers of the tropical rain forest.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Born in Riobamba, Viceroy of Peru (now in Ecuador), she was the daughter of Don Pedro Gramesón y Bruno, an administrator there. Isabel was well-educated and spoke fluent Spanish, French and Quechua, as well as knowing Quipus, the Inca method of communicating information using colored strings and knots.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jean Godin des Odonais was a French cartographer and naturalist who had joined the world's first geodesy expedition to the equator. The team worked in the Quito region from 1735 to 1744, during which time Jean and Isabel met. They married on December 27, 1741 when Isabel was fourteen years old.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">At first Jean decided to remain in Riobamba with his new wife, but in 1743 he offered to accompany La Condamine on his next expedition. He stayed behind to see Isabel through her pregnancy. But, when he heard of his father's death in March 1749, Jean decided to return to France with his family. He planned to travel alone to Cayenne, French Guiana via the Amazon to test whether the journey would be safe for them to take, and to make the necessary arrangements with the French authorities.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Upon arriving in Cayenne, Jean found the Portuguese and Spanish colonial authorities would not let him — a Frenchman of no importance — return through their territory. Unwilling to return to France without his family, he became a reluctant resident of French Guiana, constantly writing pleas to Europe to allow for his return to Riobamba. Eventually, La Condamine wrote on Jean’s behalf to the Portuguese king who, due to changing political circumstances, was eager to befriend the French. In 1765 he ordered a galiot, crewed by thirty oarsmen, to take Jean back to his wife. However, as Jean had written some incendiary letters against the Portuguese, he was suspicious of the offer of passage up the Amazon, and abandoned the ship at its first port. The captain of the galiot continued upriver without him, to fetch the Frenchman's wife as ordered.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">For most of their 20-year separation, Isabel received no news of her husband, while enduring the death of her children from smallpox. She moved to the smaller community of Guzman. When she heard rumors that a ship was waiting to take her down the Amazon, she sent her servant Joachim and a handful of Indians to investigate. The party returned two years after having discovered the waiting ship, four years after its initial departure. Isabel's father, Don Pedro, went ahead to the ship to make arrangements and to wait for Isabel.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">On October 1, 1769 a 42-person party set out for the ship: Isabel, her grown son Joachim, Isabel’s two brothers Antoine and Eugenio Gramesón, Isabel’s ten-year-old nephew Joaquin, three servants: Rosa, Elvia, and Heloise, thirty-one Indians, and three Frenchman. The route across the Andes mountains and Amazon Basin was an arduous one, made worse by the recent devastation by smallpox of the mission station at Canelos (in the present-day Pastaza Province), depriving the party of valuable support nine days into their journey. They found two Indian survivors who agreed to repair a forty-foot canoe, in which they continued down the Amazon.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The river journey proved difficult, with the canoe unmanageable, the Indians from Canelos deserting them, and one of the party drowned while trying recover the hat of one of the Frenchmen. With the canoe weighed down by supplies, the party set up camp and sent Joachim and one of the Frenchmen ahead in the canoe, so they could return with extra transport. Waiting for Joachim to return, the others began to suffer from infected insect bites. Infection killed Joaquin, then Rosa and Elvia, the remaining Frenchmen and Isabel's brothers. Heloise wandered off in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. With the others dead, Isabel was left wandering alone in the jungle.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">When Joachim arrived back at the camp, he found only the bodies of the deceased travelers. Unable to identify Isabel's body, he sent word of her death to Don Pedro — news which later reached Jean. Isabel wandered, alone and starving, for nine days. Half-crazed, she met four Indians who offered her help in reaching Cayenne. With their help, she was able to reach the waiting ship. The story of her incredible journey soon spread, and she was treated to an increasingly grand reception as she made her way downriver.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">On July 22, 1770, Isabel and Jean were reunited in the town of Oyapock after more than 20 years of separation. They remained in Cayenne for a few years. On April 21, 1773, Isabel, her husband and her father decided to leave Guiana and make their way to France. Don Pedro, having been severely disturbed by the events leading up to their arrival in France, died on November 28, 1780. Jean died in their home on the Rue de l’Hotel-Dieu, Paris on March 1, 1792. Isabel died in Cher on September 28 that same year. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-19294675545987355182012-03-22T16:23:00.001-04:002012-04-14T11:07:26.852-04:00Ruth Harkness<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsi7dUBhC4ZilBiYyMDFxXWcIcJxsYtmkSsivijMsSbujpoY2T4sB2tZg9cwc7nGEHtf_1lJhMHw_SdQHMGMSXlnMXX-6lto1Ib3ncqwc-fc_lBU7Ted2jZYhN47oPoePr-C1QOhA99I/s1600/Ruth+Harkness+with+Su-Lin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsi7dUBhC4ZilBiYyMDFxXWcIcJxsYtmkSsivijMsSbujpoY2T4sB2tZg9cwc7nGEHtf_1lJhMHw_SdQHMGMSXlnMXX-6lto1Ib3ncqwc-fc_lBU7Ted2jZYhN47oPoePr-C1QOhA99I/s200/Ruth+Harkness+with+Su-Lin.jpg" width="155" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ruth with Su Lin</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ruth Elizabeth Harkness</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (September 21, 1900 – July 20, 1947) was an American fashion designer and socialite, who traveled to China in 1936 and brought back the first live giant panda to the United States - not in a cage, or on a leash, but wrapped in her arms.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She was born in Titusville, PA. In 1934, her husband Bill Harkness had traveled to China in search of a panda, but died of throat cancer in Shanghai early in 1936. Ruth, then living in New York, decided to complete the mission herself.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She traveled to Shanghai and with the help of Chinese-American explorer Quentin Young and Gerald Russell, a British naturalist, launched her own panda mission. After passing through Chongqing and Chengdu, the team arrived at a mountainous region. There, on November 9, 1936, they encountered and captured a nine-week-old panda cub. The panda, which they named Su Lin after Young's sister-in-law, was bottle-fed baby formula on the journey back to Shanghai and the United States.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The panda caused a great sensation in the American press and eventually ended up at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Ruth brought back a second panda, Mei-Mei, before her death on July 20, 1947.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-18411373473947267332012-03-21T16:22:00.001-04:002012-04-11T20:06:14.676-04:00Marguerite Harrison ~ Not an 'explorer', but interesting nonetheless!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZsyAU5ZhDDfzhiRuvbutMdT46Qfa8ge1kf1KBHIM16Cjhhq0gRJONCoIlKwqVrzdKsRvEUvnJxITPbCA1rL8-2F6GO7YnlmGMCn3bxsJrKG1E3cqww0neUCS6pOIhh_-SCXQbK0A_qA/s1600/Margaret+Harrison.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZsyAU5ZhDDfzhiRuvbutMdT46Qfa8ge1kf1KBHIM16Cjhhq0gRJONCoIlKwqVrzdKsRvEUvnJxITPbCA1rL8-2F6GO7YnlmGMCn3bxsJrKG1E3cqww0neUCS6pOIhh_-SCXQbK0A_qA/s1600/Margaret+Harrison.bmp" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Marguerite Elton Baker Harrison</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (1879–1967) was a reporter, spy, film maker, translator and one of the four founding members of the Society of Woman Geographers. One of two daughters of wealthy Maryland businessman Bernard B. Baker and his wife Elizabeth Elton Livezey, she was born into inherited wealth and raised as a society princesses amidst opulence. Her father built, and would later lose, his lucrative Atlantic Transport Line. She adored him, but her relationship with her overprotective and all-controlling mother was distant and cold. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1907, her sister Elizabeth married Albert C. Ritchie, who would later become the 49th Governor of Maryland. When Marguerite’s first and only semester at Radcliffe College was punctuated by an affair with someone of a lower class, her mother abruptly shipped her to Italy to forget the landlady's son. In June 1901, despite her mother's vehement protestations she did succeed in marrying a non-wealthy young man, Thomas B. Harrison. Their son Thomas B Harrison II, was born March 1902.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1914 her husband died of a brain tumor, leaving Marguerite and her 13-year-old son not only penniless but deeply in debt from medical bills. In an effort to repay this debt, she turned her large home into a boarding house, which did not quite make ends meet. In 1915, despite having only one semester of college and no appropriate training, she used her brother-in-law's influence to get hired as an assistant society editor for <i>The Baltimore Sun</i>. This brought in an additional twenty, later thirty dollars a week. Coming from a society background and having a great facility with languages learned from European jaunts with her family, she was oddly qualified for this job and advanced quickly within the newspaper. By 1917 she was writing features about women's wartime labor and exposing the true fact that women work as well or better than their male counterparts.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Marguerite was 39 in 1918, and with the U.S. still involved in the war and Europe virtually one large battlefield, she became overwhelmed with the desire to report on the conditions in Germany. As women were not recognized as war correspondents, she decided to become a spy. With an introduction to chief of Military Intelligence Division of the U.S. Army General Marlborough Churchill, she offered her services. On her application, she described herself as five feet six inches tall, weighing 125 pounds; using no stimulants, tobacco or drugs; and without physical defects. Answering the question "With what foreign countries and localities are you familiar?" she replied:</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"The British Isles, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Northern Italy, Rome, Naples, Tyrol. I have an absolute command of French and German, am very fluent and have a good accent in Italian and speak a little Spanish. Without any trouble I could pass as a French woman and after a little practice, as German-Swiss … I have been to Europe fourteen times … I have been much on steamers and am familiar in a general way with ships of the merchant marine."</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The November 11th Armistice was declared before her official hiring, but she was still sent to Europe with a new assignment: "Report political and economic matters of possible interest to the United States delegation at the forthcoming peace conference." Only her immediate family and her managing editor at the <i>Sun</i> knew why the War Department was sending her to Germany in December 1918. Unlike wartime spies, she would not be reporting strategic or military intelligence but political, economic and social reporting. This would not be without risks.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Marguerite spied for the United States in Russia and Japan, arriving in Russia in 1920 as an Associated Press correspondent. She assessed Bolshevik economic strengths and weaknesses and assisted American political prisoners in Russia. She was held captive in Lubyanka, the infamous Russian prison, for 10 months. While there she contracted tuberculosis, and due to pressure from her influential contacts, including Senator Joseph I. France, she was eventually set free in exchange for food and other aid to Russia. She was arrested again in 1923 in China and was taken to Moscow, but was released before her trial after recognition by an American aid worker.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">These experiences, and those of her fellow prisoners, are related in two of her books: <i>Marooned in Moscow: the Story of an American Woman Imprisoned in Russia</i> (1921) and <i>Unfinished Tales from a Russian Prison</i> (1923). She expressed her views of Russia and China as world forces in her book <i>Red Bear or Yellow Dragon</i> (1924). With her volume <i>Asia Reborn</i> (1928), they comprise her major publications on Asia.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Providing much needed funding, Marguerite was an important member of the production team of Merian C. Cooper's classic ethnographic film <i>Grass</i> (1925). She had met Cooper at a ball in Warsaw during the early days of the Russo-Polish conflict and had provided him with food, books and blankets when he was taken prisoner, and sent to work in a prison camp, by the Russians in 1920. <i>Grass</i> depicts the annual migration of the <i>Bakhtiari</i>, an Iranian tribe who herded their livestock through snow-bound mountain passes, under conditions of great hardship, to reach high altitude summer grasslands and then return to lower elevations for the winter. In this movie, Marguerite appears as herself – a reporter. Ironically, Cooper's co-producer, Ernest B. Schoedsack, would opine, years later in a tape-recorded news interview (and totally unaware of her true activities) that she had not done "a damn thing" during the expedition!</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">At the time women were excluded from membership in most professional organizations such as the Explorers Club; this and Harrison's disillusionment with equality for women led directly to her participation in the founding of Society of Woman Geographers in 1925. Harrison also founded the Children's Hospital of Baltimore.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-78322203198635349022012-03-20T16:22:00.001-04:002012-04-14T10:57:52.824-04:00Osa Leighty Johnson ~ Explorer<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJML-djPJ8F20MXDd9YIO1aZrmT0J3RpiSbHuMiBLcAeu8ZSlyK6cw7md1neGjKAgfaUQix9q2g1pQv8Na4EgamEKNkVJWua2xttHgN_evsAaXQx09XPr58plvSeUXZ7zCjAQ2Vf_0PBQ/s1600/Osa+Johnson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJML-djPJ8F20MXDd9YIO1aZrmT0J3RpiSbHuMiBLcAeu8ZSlyK6cw7md1neGjKAgfaUQix9q2g1pQv8Na4EgamEKNkVJWua2xttHgN_evsAaXQx09XPr58plvSeUXZ7zCjAQ2Vf_0PBQ/s1600/Osa+Johnson.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Osa With a Gibbon</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Osa Leighty Johnson</span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> (March 14, 1894 – January 7, 1953) and her husband, Martin Johnson, were American adventurers and documentary filmmakers. They studied the wildlife and peoples of East and Central Africa, the South Pacific Islands and British North Bornio and captured the public's imagination through their films and books of adventure, offering many Americans their first understanding of these distant lands.</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Martin took part as a crew member and cook in Jack London's 1907–1909 voyage across the Pacific aboard the <i>Snark</i>. After that, he started a traveling road show that toured the United States displaying photographs and artifacts collected on the voyage. He met Osa while passing through her hometown of Chanute, KS and they married in May 1910.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In 1917, Martin and Osa departed on a nine-month trip through the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and Solomon Islands. The highlight of the trip was a brief, but harrowing, encounter with a tribe called the Big Nambas of northern Malekula. Once there, the chief was not going to let them leave. The intervention of a British gunboat helped them escape. The footage they got there inspired the feature film <i>Among the Cannibal Isles of the South Seas</i> (1918).</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj9SizaXA4cHhNSFX__Rf3nUtVrpYr75VQf1f1ATSAY8F1nppdGdgfpzb38xEVuFizm-YhwtIUyRd6mfZcMq49F7C_59r1AkrvL1G9bj0oFCif_5Ge3SpoZnHYTzHeZ2TFUFDpLko5Ei8/s1600/Osa&Martin+Johnson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj9SizaXA4cHhNSFX__Rf3nUtVrpYr75VQf1f1ATSAY8F1nppdGdgfpzb38xEVuFizm-YhwtIUyRd6mfZcMq49F7C_59r1AkrvL1G9bj0oFCif_5Ge3SpoZnHYTzHeZ2TFUFDpLko5Ei8/s200/Osa&Martin+Johnson.jpg" width="171" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Johnsons returned to Malekula in 1919 to film the Big Nambas once again, this time with an armed escort. The escort proved unnecessary as the Big Nambas were disarmed by watching themselves in <i>Among the Cannibal Isles of the South Seas</i>. Martin and Osa finished their trip in 1920 with visits to British North Borneo (now Sabah) and a sailing expedition up the coast of East Africa. After returning home, they released the features <i>Jungle Adventures</i> (1921) and <i>Headhunters of the South Seas</i> (1922). The Johnsons' first Africa expedition, from 1921 to 1922, resulted in their feature film <i>Trailing Wild African Animals</i> (1923).</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">During the second and longest trip, from 1924 to 1927, the Johnsons spent much of their time in northern Kenya by a lake they dubbed Paradise, at Mount Marsabit. The movies <i>Martin's Safari</i> (1928), <i>Osa's Four Years in Paradise</i> (1941), and the film <i>Simba: King of the Beasts</i> (1928) were made with footage of these trips. In 1925, they met the Duke and Duchess of York, Albert Frederick Arthur George (George VI) and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon while on Safari in Kenya.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The third African safari from 1927 to 1928 was a tour of the Nile with friend and supporter George Eastman (of Eastman Kodak fame). This trip, along with previous footage was one of the first talkies for the Johnsons, <i>Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson</i> (1930) which included Martin's narrative.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">From 1929 to 1931, the Johnsons spent a fourth tour in Africa in the Belgian Congo. There they filmed the Mbuti people of the Ituri Forest and the gorillas in the Alumbongo Hills. The 1932 feature movie <i>Congorilla</i> was in part a product of this trip, and was the first movie with sound authentically recorded in Africa.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In 1932 the Johnsons learned to fly at the airfield in Osa's hometown. Once they had their pilot's licenses, they purchased two Sikorsky amphibious planes, a S-39-CS "Spirit of Africa" and S-38-BS "Osa's Ark". On their fifth African trip, from 1933 to 1934, the Johnsons flew the length of Africa getting now classic aerial scenes of large herds of elephants, giraffes, and other animals moving across the plains of Africa. They were the first pilots to fly over Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya in Africa and film them from the air. The 1935 feature film <i>Baboona</i> was made from this footage.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In late 1934 the Johnsons participated in a promotion for <i>Baboona</i>. Celebrated WWI "Ace of Aces" Eddie Rickenbacker was enlisted to fly an Eastern Air Lines plane round-trip between Newark and Miami. In the process they set a new speed record and <i>Baboona</i> became the first sound movie to be shown during flight. The movie premiered January 22, 1935 at the Rialto Theatre in New York City.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Johnsons' final trip together took them to British North Borneo again, from 1935 to 1936. They used their smaller amphibious plane, now renamed "The Spirit of Africa and Borneo", and produced footage for the feature <i>Borneo</i> (1937).</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Martin died in the crash of a Western Air Express Boeing 247 commercial flight near Newhall, CA in 1937. Osa was severely injured but recovered. By October 1937, the <i>New York Times</i> was publishing dispatches of Osa's latest trip to Africa, in which she described lifestyles and practices of the Maasai and other tribes. She died in New York City of a heart attack in 1953.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-49948226882529405802012-03-19T16:22:00.003-04:002012-04-14T11:08:04.818-04:00Mary Henrietta Kingsley ~ Explorer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj437l4PdH5w7_4U0PZg-o8PDo7iU-1eUXR5pd3YaMyr03bT4qRhyuVuiM6EICKio28wj4yNwr4hhVk5RVuufk9SeLlnB9DxhZUpGphVAWKtFe5DCEC9ts9hWq3imPSV33BSmiJAHkCXsU/s1600/Mary+Kingsley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj437l4PdH5w7_4U0PZg-o8PDo7iU-1eUXR5pd3YaMyr03bT4qRhyuVuiM6EICKio28wj4yNwr4hhVk5RVuufk9SeLlnB9DxhZUpGphVAWKtFe5DCEC9ts9hWq3imPSV33BSmiJAHkCXsU/s200/Mary+Kingsley.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Mary Henrietta Kingsley</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (October 13, 1862 – June 3, 1900) was an English writer and explorer who greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and African people. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She was born in Islington, London on October 13, 1862 the daughter and oldest child of doctor, traveler and writer George Kingsley and Mary Bailey and niece of novelists Charles Kingsley and Henry Kingsley. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">A year after her birth, her family moved to Highgate where her brother Charles George R. (Charley) Kingsley was born in 1866. By 1881 they were living in Southwood House, Bexley in Kent. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Her father, a doctor who worked for George Herbert, 13th Earl of Pembroke and other aristocrats, was regularly away from home on his excursions. During these voyages he was able to collect information for his studies. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Between 1870 and 1875 Dr. Kingsley and Lord Dunraven ventured to North America where Kingsley was offered the opportunity to join American General Custer and his men into Native American lands. Later reports describing the massacre of Custer's party left the Kingsley family at home in England terrified, but they were relieved to later discover that bad weather had kept Dr. Kingsley from joining the Custer party. It’s likely that her father's views on the injustices faced by the Native Americans helped shape Mary's later opinions on British imperialism in West Africa.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mary was neither baptized nor brought up as a Christian. She had little formal schooling other than German lessons at a young age, but she did have access to her father's large library and loved to hear her father's stories of foreign countries. "I don't know if I revealed to you that fact that being allowed to learn German was all the paid-for education I ever had. Two thousand pounds was spent on my brother's, I still hope not in vain." (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Life of Mary Kingsley</i> by Stephen Gwynne). She didn’t enjoy novels that were deemed more appropriate for young ladies of the time, such as those by Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte, but preferred books on the sciences and memoirs of explorers. Charley, however, was sent to school and entered Christ's College in 1886 with the intent to become a lawyer, allowing Mary the chance to make several academic connections and a few friends.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The 1891 England census finds Mary's mother and her two children living at 7 Mortimer Road, Cambridge, where Charles is recorded as a BA Student at Law and Mary as a Student of Medicine. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In her later years, Mary's mother became ill and Mary was expected to care for her well-being. She was unable to leave her mother's side for more than a few hours and therefore had limited travel opportunities. Her father also became bedridden with rheumatic fever after an excursion. Dr. Kingsley died in February 1892 as did <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mrs. Kingsley the following April. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Freed from her family responsibilities and with an inheritance of £8,600 to be split evenly with her brother, Mary was now able to travel as she dreamed. She decided to visit Africa to collect the material she would need to finish off a book that her father had started on the culture of the people of Africa. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">After a preliminary visit to the Canary Islands, Mary made preparations to travel to the west coast of Africa. The only non-African women who regularly embarked on (often dangerous) journeys to Africa were usually the wives of missionaries, government officials or explorers, a stereotype which she struggled to overcome throughout her lifetime. Exploration and adventure were not seen as fitting roles for a Victorian woman. Even African women were astonished that a woman of Mary's age was traveling without a man, as she was frequently asked why her husband was not accompanying her.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She landed in Sierra Leone on August 17, 1893 and pressed on into Luanda in Angola where she lived with local people who taught her necessary skills for surviving in the dangerous African jungle where she often ventured alone. Her training as a nurse at the Kaiserworth Medical Institute prepared her for slight injuries and jungle maladies that she would later encounter. Mary returned to England in December 1893.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Upon her return to England, Mary secured support and aid from Dr. Albert Günther, a prominent zoologist at the British Museum, as well as a writing agreement with publisher George Macmillan for her travel accounts. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She returned to Africa in December 1894 with more support and supplies, as well as increased self assurance in her work. She longed to study 'cannibal' peoples and their traditional religious practices, commonly referred to as fetish during the Victorian Era. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The following April she became acquainted with Scottish missionary Mary Slessor, another female living among native populations with little company and no husband. It was during her meeting with Slessor that Kingsley first became painfully aware of the custom of twin killing, a custom Slessor was determined to stop. The native people believed that one of the twins was the offspring of the devil who had secretly mated with the mother and since the innocent child was impossible to distinguish, both were killed and the mother was often killed as well for attracting the devil to impregnate her. Kingsley arrived at Slessor's residence shortly after she had taken in a recent mother of twins and her surviving child.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JUo81Wot9rBKegFajcaFAtvcrLzg_zMt3GMawHVHeBXoz0g9nEcYENUDkAZHjGCXb0R72EXhv8k6bUW-DDwX-euiyKPpsJz6Stcgi6R4LmKknw-Hv1WSeLLKa8DiUS34iqkA7Gs27H0/s1600/Mary+Kingsley+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JUo81Wot9rBKegFajcaFAtvcrLzg_zMt3GMawHVHeBXoz0g9nEcYENUDkAZHjGCXb0R72EXhv8k6bUW-DDwX-euiyKPpsJz6Stcgi6R4LmKknw-Hv1WSeLLKa8DiUS34iqkA7Gs27H0/s320/Mary+Kingsley+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Later, in Gabon, Mary traveled by canoe up the Ogooué River where she collected specimens of previously unknown fish, three which were later named after her. After meeting the Fang people and traveling through uncharted Fang territory, she climbed the daring 13,760 ft. Mount Cameroon by a route not previously attempted by any other European. She is known to have moored her boat at Donguila.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">When she returned to England in November 1895, Mary was greeted by journalists who were eager to interview her. The reports that were drummed up about her voyage however were most upsetting to her, as the papers portrayed her as a "New Woman", an image which she did not embrace. Mary distanced herself from any feminist movement claims, arguing that she had never worn trousers during her expedition and even denounced equality for women in scholarly societies. She dressed conservatively and tried to avoid any more controversy than her studies already attracted her.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Over the next three years, she toured the country giving lectures about life in Africa to a wide array of audiences. She was the first woman to address the Liverpool and Manchester chambers of commerce.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mary upset the Church of England when she criticized missionaries for attempting to change the people of Africa. She talked about, and indeed defended, many aspects of African life that had shocked many English people, including polygamy. For example explaining the "seething mass of infamy, degradation and destruction going on among the Coast native... [as] the natural consequence of the breaking down of an ordered polygamy into a disordered monogamy". She argued that a "black man is no more an undeveloped white man than a rabbit is an undeveloped hare" as well asserting that she did not regard "the native form as 'low' or 'inferior'... but as a form of mind of a different sort to white men's - a very good form of mind too, in its way." After living with the African people, Mary became directly aware how their societies functioned and how prohibiting customs such as polygamy would be detrimental to their way of life. She knew that the typical African wives had too many tasks to manage alone and did not view their marriage situations as cruel or unfair. Missionaries in Africa often required converted men to abandon all but one of their wives, this leaving the other women and children without the support of a husband. Despite these seemingly radical views on justifying African ways of life, she was fairly conservative on other issues and did not support the women's suffrage movement.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She wrote two books about her experiences: <i>Travels in West Africa</i> (1897), which was an immediate best-seller, and <i>West African Studies</i> (1899). Both granted her vast respect and prestige within the scholarly community. Some newspapers refused to publish reviews of her works, such as the <i>Times</i> colonial editor Flora Shaw, likely on the grounds that her beliefs countered the imperialistic intentions of the British Empire and the commonly accepted notion that African natives were inferior peoples. It’s likely that she refrained from any suffrage connections in order to ensure her work was received favorably.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">During the Second Boer War, Mary travelled to Cape Town and volunteered as a nurse. She was stationed at Simon's Town hospital, where she treated Boer prisoners of war. After contributing her services to the ill for about two months, she developed symptoms of typhoid and died on June 3, 1900. In accordance with her wishes, she was buried at sea.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mary’s tales and opinions of life in Africa helped draw attention to British imperial agendas abroad and the native customs of African people that were previously little discussed or misunderstood by the European masses. The Fair Commerce Party formed soon after her death, pressuring for improved conditions for the natives of British colonies. Various reform associations were formed in her honour and helped facilitate governmental change. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine founded an honorary medal in her name. Her understanding and empathy for the native African people and their interests, along with her stance on their so called "savage" way of life earned her unwanted fame and an unmerited label as a feminist, an image she countered whenever given the chance.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-76911022648448206792012-03-18T16:45:00.002-04:002012-04-14T10:58:41.979-04:00Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed (aka Aubrey Le Blond) ~ Mountaineer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCJr0bsM5AbVmuDq9RBuHp5uq60chH7__6US6heYkqqIQXHMUOqdI-morXRiXc2yhxpYAzvxDfLoFF8_5cgFGW-OE5UhmidZtLCQcy0Hi6bUED2LUrJ3tWbmYeRQlZxlNilvVEGsLjhgo/s1600/Aubrey+Le+Blond.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCJr0bsM5AbVmuDq9RBuHp5uq60chH7__6US6heYkqqIQXHMUOqdI-morXRiXc2yhxpYAzvxDfLoFF8_5cgFGW-OE5UhmidZtLCQcy0Hi6bUED2LUrJ3tWbmYeRQlZxlNilvVEGsLjhgo/s200/Aubrey+Le+Blond.jpg" width="185" /></a></div><b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> (1860 - July 27, 1934) was a British pioneer of mountaineering in a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman to climb mountains. She was also an author and a photographer of mountain scenery.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">She came from an upper class background, being the only child of Captain Sir St Vincent Hawkins-Whitshed, 3rd Baronet and Anne Alicia Handcock and was descended from the aristocratic Bentinck family, therefore related to the Dukes of Portland. Elizabeth was born in London, but grew up in Greystones, County Wicklow in the southeast of Ireland, where her father owned quite a bit of land. Her father died while she was still a minor, and the Lord Chancellor took her on as his ward.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Elizabeth moved to Switzerland, where she climbed mountains and <span style="color: #222222;">scandalized society by climbing in trousers although she wore a skirt over them, removing it only on the higher slopes</span>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">She married three times: in 1879, to Frederick Gustavus Burnaby (died 1885); in 1886, to John Frederick Main (died 1892); and in 1900, to Francis Bernard Aubrey Le Blond. From her first marriage, she had a son Harry Burnaby (1880). Despite her second and third marriages, the lands at Greystones that she had inherited from her father (before marriage) were to be known as the Burnaby Estate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Elizabeth published accounts of her climbing under the names <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mrs. Fred Burnaby</b>, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mrs. Main</b>, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond</b>. As Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond she made at least 10 films of alpine activities in the Engadine Valley of Switzerland, including ice hockey at St Moritz and tobogganing on the Cresta Run. She is probably among the world's first three female film-makers, after Alice Guy and contemporary with Laura Bayley. Her films were shown by James Williamson at Hove Town Hall in November 1900, being included in his catalogue in 1902, and were praised by the film pioneer Cecil Hepworth and the writer E.F. Benson.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In 1907, she became the first president of the Ladies Alpine Club. She wrote seven books on mountain climbing and over her lifetime climbed twenty peaks that no one had climbed before. Her autobiography, <i>Day In, Day Out</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was published in 1928. </span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-16194414738037196242012-03-18T16:30:00.001-04:002012-04-14T10:59:13.536-04:00Kate Marsden ~ Explorer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5EtLRJklF0cF2WP_TRWfBW7bH4RIySefXu_0dbugN_deeEKc7Wnoq_E3w7gpJRjBlEffBZ5Twqnp6VIapzxhOk10vNC45qQnEwYz8bee5SKi3yFt_9SPf5Cr_vwirYlL5qAkvDu11iRk/s1600/Kate+Marsden+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5EtLRJklF0cF2WP_TRWfBW7bH4RIySefXu_0dbugN_deeEKc7Wnoq_E3w7gpJRjBlEffBZ5Twqnp6VIapzxhOk10vNC45qQnEwYz8bee5SKi3yFt_9SPf5Cr_vwirYlL5qAkvDu11iRk/s200/Kate+Marsden+2.jpg" width="148" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kate Marsden (1859 – 1931) was a battle-hardened nurse who had cared for the wounded during the war between Russia and Turkey in 1878. Yet even those wartime experiences had not prepared her for the grueling equestrian journey she undertook in 1891. Having learned of the horrific conditions under which Russian lepers were forced to live, she resolutely sought out the imperial assistance of England’s Queen Victoria, as well as the Empress of Russia, then set off to ride thousands of miles across the wilds of Siberia. </span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This nurse, turned equestrian explorer, was intent on bringing medical relief to Russia’s forgotten wounded, as well as finding a herb which was allegedly a cure for leprosy. After having completed one of the most difficult equestrian journeys of the late 19th century, Kate returned to England where the intrepid “Long Rider” became one of the first women to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. After stepping down from the saddle, she founded the St. Francis Leprosy Guild in London.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This portion of Kate’s remarkable story was extracted from her book, <i>Riding through Siberia</i>:</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ4yThOxRrhak1wk_GbN_ppfErIDrDcq-GJjavDd5zlHv74hIW7Sya-pWGiVcsr6N_cZTaYWLghCr5cy8sNLBXVs_kzupB9GqrGpWDGFSHAjDRQSrNBFyErDrYa1dyi-gNRkFvcIQAoWw/s1600/Kate+Marsden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ4yThOxRrhak1wk_GbN_ppfErIDrDcq-GJjavDd5zlHv74hIW7Sya-pWGiVcsr6N_cZTaYWLghCr5cy8sNLBXVs_kzupB9GqrGpWDGFSHAjDRQSrNBFyErDrYa1dyi-gNRkFvcIQAoWw/s320/Kate+Marsden.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Résumé of some of the difficulties of my journey among the lepers. Being a translation of a document written by myself in French, and signed by the tchinovnick </span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">[official] </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">who acted as my interpreter.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We left Yakutsk for Viluisk June 22nd, 1891, to begin our long journey of three thousand versts (2000 miles) on horseback, for the purpose of visiting the lepers living in forests unknown, even to the Russians. Our cavalcade was somewhat curious, consisting of about fifteen men and thirty horses; all those around me were talking in a language which I could not understand, though Mr. Petroff did, who also knew a little French. The photographer in Yakutsk took our photograph; but someone moved before it was finished, and therefore it was a failure. It might have given an idea of our costumes. As to mine, it was not very elegant : a sun-hat, over it a network arrangement as a protection from the mosquitoes, a jacket with very long sleeves, with the badge of the red cross on my left arm. Very full trousers down to my knees, and high boots above my knees. A revolver, a whip, and a little travelling bag. I was obliged to ride as a man for many reasons. First, because the Yakutsk horses were so wild that it was impossible for me to ride otherwise; second, no woman could ride on a lady's saddle for 3000 versts; and thirdly, as there were no roads, the horse constantly stumbles on the roots that are in the forest, threatening to throw the rider over its head; then it sinks into the mud till the rider's feet are on earth; having somehow recovered its footing, it rushes along between the branches of the trees and shrubs, utterly regardless of the fact that they were tearing and making mincemeat of the rider's dress. The first day we did five versts (3.3 miles); the second, fifteen (10); the third, twenty (13.3); and after that, 80 versts without stopping for sleep. One's sufferings were far worse than even when travelling in the tarantass [springless carriage]; the stiffened position of my body being altogether contrary to its usual free and easy habit; and the jerky movements of the untrained horse gave me dreadful pain.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We were obliged to take food with us for three months; some black and white dried bread, some dried prunes, some tea and sugar, and other indispensable articles for so long a journey; for, excepting at Viluisk, you can get absolutely nothing, not even bread and tea.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before leaving Yakutsk, His Grace the Archbishop asked us to go to his house, that he might give us his blessing. When we went, His Grace, dressed in all his most brilliant robes, blessed us and pronounced over us his benediction. All the time I was in Yakutsk he took care of me like a father, tenderly and lovingly. We left there very quietly, so as not to attract attention. I had a very great objection to make any parade of our starting to my work, for it was serious; and it is my desire that it should be finished as it was begun, with the blessing of God on us at every step, whether that step be difficult or easy.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you are travelling through marshes in which your horse, without a moment's warning, sinks up to his stomach, you are obliged to hold on by the reins and by your knees and hands and every way, as best you can. The only thought in my mind at the time was to keep on and not fall off, and to keep my horse on his feet, for if my horse fell I must fall with it, and find myself in the mud. The first ten marshes it was not so difficult; but after we had passed hundreds of them all the body ached; I felt as though I had spent fifty years on the tread-mill. It was then, that, to keep in the saddle, was a feat worthy of a hero.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the official maps there is a road traced leading from Yakutsk to Viluisk, but in reality there is no such road—so do not be misled by official maps if you should go there. You will have to pass through unnamed marshes, and never find any such road.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOs9cnh1hl52bUXxxMGu-RdJNJsfkfyc08SimS0eMZxDVftp7ips9jKxgdwsX36Ad4QrS5gjpJNm1Y_KtTlpXHyF3Zkt5vfnc9xVfRAljTYunbMxm7qxG5Bc7dp6mC-lAdjawOPVKAhaM/s1600/Kate+Marsden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOs9cnh1hl52bUXxxMGu-RdJNJsfkfyc08SimS0eMZxDVftp7ips9jKxgdwsX36Ad4QrS5gjpJNm1Y_KtTlpXHyF3Zkt5vfnc9xVfRAljTYunbMxm7qxG5Bc7dp6mC-lAdjawOPVKAhaM/s320/Kate+Marsden.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the summer the mosquitoes are frightful, both in the night and in the day; and when you arrive at a yourta [yurt], which serves as a post-station, the dirt and vermin and smell are simply disgusting; bugs, lice, fleas, etc., cover the walls, as well as the benches on which you have to sleep. Even on the ground you will find them, and, as soon as a stranger comes in, it seems as if the insects make a combined assault on him in large battalions; and, of course, sleep is a thing never dreamed of. After a few days the body swells from their bites into a form that can neither be imagined nor described. They attack your eyes and your face, so that you would hardly be recognised by your dearest friend. Yet with all these pains and penalties we had still to continue riding from forty to eighty versts in one day; we did even 100 versts without sleep. The fatigue, and the want of rest were dreadful. Cows and calves were in the same yourta with us, and the smell from them and from everything else was horrible. We would, indeed, have made very funny pictures of miserable travellers. As there is only one yourta at a post-station, ladies and gentlemen are obliged to sleep all together, and any traveller that may be present at the same time; a gentleman might put up with it, but it is impossible for a lady. After riding on horseback for the first time, my body was in constant pain, and complete rest with the possibility of undressing was indispensable; but as they say in French, "à la guerre comme à la guerre." As undressing was not possible, I was obliged to rest the best way I could. The Cossack was also ill that day, and Mr. Petroff and myself had our heads bound up so as to ease the pain a little, having been badly burnt by the sun. To have even five minutes' rest we were obliged to have a fire made up of cow dung in this disgusting yourta, and, to prevent the smoke from escaping, as that is the only way to have any rest, we were obliged to cover the opening of the chimney. The mosquitoes left us alone; but as to our eyes, they were so irritated by the smoke that they were bathed in tears; and my head suffered even worse. The other animals, however, did not cease to attack us all the time. I would indeed have presented an original picture. To remain five minutes longer within was not possible, we could do nothing at all because of the smoke; and this continued all day.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Really, I think the sufferings of this journey have added twenty years to my age. But I would willingly do it ten times over to aid my poor lepers who are placed in the depths of' these unknown forests.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You are always running the risk of being attacked by bears here, so that we always kept our revolvers ready at our side or under our heads; and two Yakuts as sentinels, with large fires at each end of the little encampment.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Soon after we started on our journey, we were obliged to travel in the night, because our horses had no rest in the day time from the terrible horse-flies that were quite dangerous there. They instantly attacked the wretched beasts, so that it was an awful sight to see our horses with the blood running down their sides, many of them becoming so exhausted that they were not able to carry our luggage.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At one place the bears might have attacked us with impunity. It was a very dangerous spot, as we were in the depths of a thick forest; we could hardly see two yards off, and the Yakuts saw eleven bears as we passed. Before starting, we all grasped our revolvers and guns, and we always had a large box filled with stones, which made a great clatter as we travelled; the bells also of some of our horses made a considerable noise. One of the Cossacks was in front of me, Mr. Petroff was on one side, the other Cossack and the rest of the escort, the horses and luggage, being behind. In the less dangerous parts of the forest everyone used to sing, making noise enough to frighten fifty bears. The horses are in such a fearful dread of the bears that they smell them afar off; and, as soon as they know they are near, they become almost unmanageable, dragging you through the forests, between the trees, flying like the wind. One thing was perfectly clear, that had the bears come near, it is quite certain some of us would have been killed, if not by the bears, then by the horses, who were almost mad.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One further danger must be related, so that readers of this document may have some notion of the many trials that had to be endured. After having left Viluisk one night we entered an immense forest, where the horses made a peculiar noise with their feet, as if they were walking over hollow ground. Having asked what it meant, I was told that we were near a place where the forest was burning. In about half an hour there was seen in the distance a small body of flames; but on getting nearer it seemed almost a picture of the infernal regions, so terrible was it to the sight, and yet we were obliged to go right into it. Far as could be seen there were flames and smoke rising from the ground, which was everywhere, apparently, burning. One of the Yakuts was in front; I was next, my horse picking its way; but sometimes it would get into a hole where there was fire, when it became terrified, throwing itself from right to left, becoming restive and wild till one became almost exhausted; for, in addition to this, there was the effort to distinguish the path through the smoke with eyes smarting and almost blinded with the glare of the fire. However, we travelled on, but all at once we heard a dreadful noise behind us. Nothing could be seen through the flames and smoke, but the noise steadily kept coming nearer; our horses began to get still more restless, and before we could have any idea, where the sound came from, a horse with some luggage on it, mad with fright at the flames and the smoke, rushed into our midst. Mr. Petroff, who was behind, had just time to give it a slash with his whip, which made it turn a little to the right, otherwise it would have been on me, and certainly I would have been killed. It was quite mad, and dashed right into the flames, as it was impossible to stop it, having so much to do to manage our own horses.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was the most terrible experience of the journey, and it was only through God's mercy that we were kept alive.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have asked Mr. Petroff to sign this, as he was witness to these dangers, having been with me all the time.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Signed) KATE MARSDEN. August 24th (September 6th), 1891. [<i>The variation in dates reflects the difference between the Gregorian Calendar and the Orthodox (Julian) one since the Gregorian Calendar was adopted by Catholic Europe in 1582.] </i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Signed) SERGE MICHAILOVITCH PETROFF, Tchinovnick for special services attached </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">to the Governor of Yakutsk.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> </span></b></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-75520737165826313822012-03-16T16:21:00.001-04:002012-04-14T10:59:42.341-04:00Alexandra David-Neel ~ Explorer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBRQMKuSvwAphkRDtXI7YpYvdHbx54CCQzdXXJ4OspsgrJXK07Oth7FGnd9i9YzSBPKn_CWu9BqLcqvguvMSDrgI2NLehHq2kIkco1vTdCM0zmr9G6W2udL1Hn8oO5WJxUF78EGuhrWNE/s1600/Alexandra+David-Neel.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBRQMKuSvwAphkRDtXI7YpYvdHbx54CCQzdXXJ4OspsgrJXK07Oth7FGnd9i9YzSBPKn_CWu9BqLcqvguvMSDrgI2NLehHq2kIkco1vTdCM0zmr9G6W2udL1Hn8oO5WJxUF78EGuhrWNE/s1600/Alexandra+David-Neel.gif" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Alexandra David-Néel</span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> (October 24, 1868 – September 8, 1969) was a Belgian-French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist and writer most known for her visit to Lhasa, Tibet in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners. She wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy and her travels. Her teachings influenced beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, philosopher Alan Watts and Theosophist Benjamin Creme.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Born <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David</span> in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, Paris she moved to Ixelles (Brussels) at the age of six. During her childhood she had a very strong desire for freedom and spirituality. At the age of 18, she had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own and was studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In 1890 and 1891, she traveled through India, returning only when she was running out of money. In Tunis in 1900 she met and lived with railroad engineer Philippe Néel, marrying him in 1904.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In 1911 Alexandra left Néel and traveled for the second time to India, to further her study of Buddhism. She was invited to the royal monastery of Sikkim, where she met Maharaj Kumar (crown prince) Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal. She became Sidkeong's "confidante and spiritual sister”. She also met the 13th Dalai Lama twice in 1912, and had the opportunity to ask him many questions about Buddhism — a feat unprecedented for a European woman at that time.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCyqRnIz10fI2sJCSn9CDTnJFNoPdESepGrbfH9YM0ExlWGiz2PdyaH11QYP8qvAJHp3Hn2yqOmietsZuBO-7cTHUdz7uqT7RW8FqmOGxHr7pAr3-b8FkjMtcMhKEFNCcOqY7hMbkLonM/s1600/Alexandra+Neel+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCyqRnIz10fI2sJCSn9CDTnJFNoPdESepGrbfH9YM0ExlWGiz2PdyaH11QYP8qvAJHp3Hn2yqOmietsZuBO-7cTHUdz7uqT7RW8FqmOGxHr7pAr3-b8FkjMtcMhKEFNCcOqY7hMbkLonM/s1600/Alexandra+Neel+1.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">From 1914-1916 she lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the Tibetan border, learning spirituality, together with the young Sikkimese monk Aphur Yongden (born 1899). Alhur, who she adopted later, became her lifelong traveling companion. From Sikkim they trespassed into Tibetan territory, meeting the Panchen Lama in Shigatse in August 1916. When the British authorities learned of this (Sikkim was then a British protectorate) Alexandra and Aphur were forced to leave the country. Unable to return to Europe in the middle of World War I, Alexandra and Yongden traveled to Japan.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In Japan Alexandra met Ekai Kawaguchi, who had visited Lhasa in 1901 disguised as a Chinese doctor, and this inspired them to visit Lhasa disguised as pilgrims. After traversing China from east to west, they reached Lhasa in 1924 and spent 2 months there.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In 1928 she legally separated from Philippe, but they continued to exchange letters. He kept supporting her till his death in 1941. Alexandra settled in Digne (Provence), and during the next nine years she wrote books. In 1929, she published her most famous and beloved work, <i>Mystiques et Magiciens du Tibet</i> (<i>Magic and Mystery in Tibet</i>).</span><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In 1937, Alexandra and Yongden went to Tibet through the former Soviet Union, traveling there during World War II. They eventually ended up in Tachienlu, where she continued her investigations of Tibetan sacred literature. While in Eastern Tibet they completed circumambulation of the holy mountain Amnye Machen.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1I4Jby6ec4wNUWHiyapHdnN1nlYGy5rvll1KrsxDLg8d6cCn2G3KtDzrWaZZe5EsYiv4o8JE0ELFgpRFVCjcFketc0dCMZufuTxZ68gSR5GHScbKbNhnNgiTZfYRgIFnJ6zRXoJKWps/s1600/Alexander+Neel+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1I4Jby6ec4wNUWHiyapHdnN1nlYGy5rvll1KrsxDLg8d6cCn2G3KtDzrWaZZe5EsYiv4o8JE0ELFgpRFVCjcFketc0dCMZufuTxZ68gSR5GHScbKbNhnNgiTZfYRgIFnJ6zRXoJKWps/s320/Alexander+Neel+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The pair returned to France in 1946. Alexandra was then 78 years old. Yongden died at age 56 in 1955. Alexandra continued to study and write at Digne till her death in Digne-les-Bains at age nearly 101. According to her last will and testament, her ashes and those of Yongden were mixed together and dispersed in the Ganges in 1973 at Varanasi, by her friend Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">One minor mystery relating to Alexandra David-Neel has a solution: In <i>Forbidden Journey</i>, p. 284, the authors wonder how Mme. David-Neel's secretary, Violet Sydney, made her way back to the West in 1939 after <i>Sous des nuées d'orage</i> (Storm Clouds) was completed in Tachienlu. Peter Goullart's <i>Land of the Lamas</i> (not in <i>Forbidden Journey'</i>s bibliography), on pp. 110–113 gives an account of his accompanying Ms. Sydney partway back, then putting her under the care of Lolo bandits to continue the journey to Chengdu. Mme. David-Neel evidently remained in Tachienlu for the duration of the war</span>.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://0.gvt0.com/vi/cEF_BZKPN0Q/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cEF_BZKPN0Q&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cEF_BZKPN0Q&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-71103356067988040332012-03-15T16:45:00.001-04:002012-04-15T13:11:08.231-04:00Mary Ann Brown Patten ~ an Accidental Navigator<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifAbWoZuKzHZN1NHzDXtX9QzgQRpxdPBsIL9MfH6yk3KAYJZp-CY9U2INf7jvZFvLM-CFT1uwBpjs3ioM_QmGr61KnYL8voeBAaD66rSeIX4MXsoIEd36fHhuaDyZsm8TM_SFeIGhqJOU/s1600/Mary+Ann+Brown+Patten.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifAbWoZuKzHZN1NHzDXtX9QzgQRpxdPBsIL9MfH6yk3KAYJZp-CY9U2INf7jvZFvLM-CFT1uwBpjs3ioM_QmGr61KnYL8voeBAaD66rSeIX4MXsoIEd36fHhuaDyZsm8TM_SFeIGhqJOU/s1600/Mary+Ann+Brown+Patten.jpg" /></a></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Between 1854 and 1856, the clipper ship <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Neptune's Car</span></em> was under the command of Captain Joshua Patten. During two of his trips, his 20-year-old bride, Mary Patten, sailed with him. Joshua taught her navigation, meteorology, the ropes and sails, stowage of cargo and many other ship’s duties. She learned navigation using the new “Wind and Current Charts” by Matthew F. Maury. These charts enabled captains to cut weeks off of long passages around the Horn.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">During their 1855 journey from San Francisco to New York around the Horn, the First Mate was caught sleeping on duty and thrown into irons. The second mate, Mr. Hare, had little knowledge of navigation, so Joshua took most of the watches to keep the ship on course. Just before reaching the Cape, he collapsed from the strain. The former First Mate organized a mutiny but Mary, who was now pregnant with their first child, stood up to the sailors and convinced them that she could navigate and get them to California on time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">When they reached Golden Gate Bay, CA Mary personally took the help and navigated the ship to port, delivering the cargo to the owners intact. The trip had taken 136 days. It was an extraordinary achievement, detailed in Douglas Kelley's excellent first novel <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Captain's Wife</span></em> (2001), and covered in San Francisco and national press. Mary ignored all the attention and quietly took her husband home on the vessel <em>George Law</em>. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Captain Patten died some months later.</span><br />
A hospital at King’s Point Academy in New York is named for her.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; vertical-align: middle;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">"A Heroine of the Sea" </span></b><br />
<em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">New York Daily Tribune, February 18, 1857</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; vertical-align: middle;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Among the noble band of women who, by their heroic bearing, under great trial and suffering, have won for themselves imperishable fame, Mary A. Patten may claim a prominent position. Mrs. Patten is a native of Boston, and but 20 years of age. Her husband, Capt. Joshua A. Patten, sailed from this port in July last, for San Francisco, as commander of the clipper ship </span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Neptune's Car<span style="color: #333333; mso-no-proof: yes;"><shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"> <stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype><shape alt="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=themaritime00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0452283558&camp=217145&creative=399369" id="Picture_x0020_9" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 0.75pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 0.75pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="ir?t=themaritime00-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0452283558&camp=217145&creative=399369" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\JUDIHE~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.gif"></imagedata></shape></span><span style="color: #333333;">, of Foster and Nickerson's line, and it was during this voyage that his wife rendered herself so distinguished. Capt. Patten is well known in this port, and at the eastward, as a young and rising seaman; and the vessels under his command have made some of the swiftest passages on record. He took command of the <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Neptune's Car</span></em> about two years ago, and made his first voyage in her to San Francisco in 90 days. On that occasion Mrs. Patten accompanied him to San Francisco, China, London, and back to New York. His next voyage was that last year to San Francisco, in which his wife again accompanied him. The <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Neptune's Car</span></em> left port at the same time with the clippers <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Romance of the Seas, Intrepid</span></em>, and two others, the names of which we do not remember. As usual with commanders in the Pacific trade, Capt. Patten wished to get his ship into port ahead of his rivals. He soon found, however, that his first mate slept during half his watch on the quarter deck, while he kept the ship under reefed courses, and after repeated remonstrance had proved unavailing he found it necessary to remove him. After that he undertook to discharge the mate's duties as well as his own, and in consequence of fatigue was taken sick, while passing through the Straits of Lemaire, around the Horn, and in a short time brain fever developed itself.<br />
<br />
From that time, up to the period of her arrival at San Francisco, Mrs. Patten was both nurse and navigator. When her husband was taken sick the ship was given in charge of the second mate. He, however, was but an indifferent navigator, and although he knew how to take an observation, he could not work up the reckoning. Mrs. Patten, who, on her previous voyage, had studied navigation as a pastime, now took observations, worked up the reckoning by chronometer time, laid the ship's courses, and performed most of the other duties of the captain of the ship. During this time her husband was delirious with the fever, and she shaved his head, and devised every means in her power to soothe and restore him. To this end, she studied medicine to know how to treat his case intelligently, and in course of time succeeded in carrying him alive through the crisis of his complaint.<br />
<br />
About one week after the Captain fell sick the mate wrote a letter to Mrs. Patten, reminding her of the dangers of the coast and the great responsibility she had assumed, and offering to take charge of the ship. She replied that, in the judgment of her husband, he was unfit to be mate, and therefore could not be considered qualified to fill the post of commander. Stung by this rebuff, the fellow tried to stir up the crew to mutiny against her; but she called the other mates and sailors aft, and appealed to them to support her in her hour of trial. To a man they resolved to stand by her and the ship, come what might. It was pleasant to witness their cheerful obedience to her orders, as each man vied with his fellows in the performance of his duties.<br />
<br />
By the time the ship came nearly up to the latitude of Valparaiso, Capt. Patten had somewhat recovered from the fever, although far too weak for any mental or physical exertion, and the mate, after promise of doing better in future, had partially resumed duty. But Mrs. Patten discovering that he was steering the ship out of her course, and making for Valparaiso, appraised her husband of the fact. The mate was summoned below and asked to explain his conduct, which he did by saying that he could not keep the ship nearer her course. Capt. Patten then had his cot moved to a part of the cabin from which he could view the "tell-tale" of the compass, and soon found that the mate was still steering for Valparaiso. He then sent for the four mates and the sailors, promoting the second officer to his place. Then he gave orders that under no circumstances was his ship to be taken into any other port than San Francisco. Soon after he had a relapse, and for 25 days before the vessel reached port he was totally blind. At length San Francisco was reached in safety, after a short voyage of 120 days, the vessel beating three out of four of her competitors.<br />
<br />
The safety of the ship and the preservation of her husband's life were wholly due to the constant care and watchfulness of Mrs. Patten. On her arrival she informed the consignee of the vessel that for fifty nights previous she had not undressed herself.<br />
<br />
Some time in December last we published the only account of this remarkable instance of female fortitude which had been given, in an extract from a commercial letter to the owners in this city. Yesterday we received a note from our ship-news collector, stating that Mrs. Patten and her husband were in this city, having arrived in the steamer <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">George Law</span></em>. We found them at the Battery Hotel, and obtained an interview with Mrs. Patten. She was assiduously attending her husband as heretofore, but his situation is such as to preclude all hope of recovery. Before leaving San Francisco, deafness was added to his other afflictions, and he now lies upon his couch insensible to everything but the kind offices of his beloved companion, and so weak that he may expire at any moment. Occasionally he speaks to his wife, sometimes lucidly, but oftener in a wild and incoherent manner. Mrs. Patten's brother, Mr. Brown, we believe, who is foreman of a shipyard in Boston, is in attendance upon his sister and brother-in-law. From him we learned that Capt. Patten had been taken care of by his brother Masons in San Francisco, and Dr. Harris, one of the fraternity, had watched over him on his way home. On leaving San Francisco, he seemed to rally considerably, but on reaching a warm latitude he relapsed, and has sunk to the hopeless state in which we found him. The Masons of this city, having been advised from San Francisco of his intended departure for home, were waiting for the <em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">George Law</span></em> on her arrival, and brought him on a litter to the Battery Hotel, where they have since watched over him.<br />
<br />
With that modesty which generally distinguishes true merit, Mrs. Patten begged to be excused from speaking about herself. She said that she had done no more than her duty, and as the recollection of her trials and suffering evidently gave her pain, we could not do otherwise than respect her feelings. Few persons would imagine that the woman who behaved so bravely, and endured so much for her husband's sake, is a slender New England girl, scarcely twenty years old. She is a lady of medium height, with black hair, large, dark, lustrous eyes, and very pleasing features. Her health is very much impaired from the hardships which she has undergone, and she is very near the period of maternity. Yet she does not spare herself in the least, but is most faithful and constant in her attentions to her husband. We have been informed that she is in strained circumstances, and although she might and doubtless would shrink from assistance from others, yet it seems to me that this is a case in which our merchants may do themselves honor, by a liberal recognition of her heroic conduct. The Board of Underwriters, we understand, have voted or will vote her $1,000. Considering that the ship and cargo were worth nearly $350,000, and that to her skill and decision they are mainly indebted for its safety, under most severe circumstances -- for the weather was unusually severe -- we think, looking at the matter from a purely pecuniary point of view, the least they should have done would have been to give her a check for $5,000. Not only did she safely take the ship from Cape Horn to San Francisco, but both vessel and cargo were in better trim than any of her competitors when she reached port. Of course the owners of the ship will do handsomely by Mrs. Patten, but were the merchants of New York to make up a liberal purse it would prove highly acceptable to the widow (as she almost certainly soon will be) and her small family.<br />
<br />
Capt. Patten is a native of Rockland, Maine, and has risen from the forecastle solely by his own exertions. Mrs. Patten and her brother will convey him to their home in Boston today by the steamer, if the weather will permit. That she has the entire sympathies of this community in her trying affliction she may be fully assured, and also that by her good deeds she has added another laurel to the honor of her sex. </span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-78592182214300258352012-03-15T16:30:00.000-04:002012-04-15T13:09:18.120-04:00Josephine Diebitsch Peary ~ Explorer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglmO5X4F1PY6JrxJ-nTouHojR2CHjRx-kiqe5QUaJ9GGlk9nnNWxvFcywg7MdkJUgBBzChEQE9k2dY-ai24wUj3piUUiwAnniT_bJzzn8jLpVtuZp78vruHRCK0uqLOHFPlTPrVqJOVk0/s1600/Josephine+Peary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglmO5X4F1PY6JrxJ-nTouHojR2CHjRx-kiqe5QUaJ9GGlk9nnNWxvFcywg7MdkJUgBBzChEQE9k2dY-ai24wUj3piUUiwAnniT_bJzzn8jLpVtuZp78vruHRCK0uqLOHFPlTPrVqJOVk0/s200/Josephine+Peary.jpg" width="142" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Josephine Cecilia Diebitsch Peary</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (May 22, 1863 - December 19, 1955) was an American author and arctic explorer. She was born in Forestville, MD to Herman Henry Diebitsch, a professor at the Smithsonian Institution, and Magdelena Augusta Schmid. Her brother, Emil Diebitsch, later became the Mayor of Nutley, NJ. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She was raised in a loging family that encouraged her to explore the world. In 1885 while attending dancing school in Washington, she met Robert Edwin Peary, the future Admiral who would become known for discovering the North Pole.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">They married three years later, in 1888, and began a life of discovery together. Josephine's eagerness to explore the world prompted her to accompany her husband and the small crew of the <em>Kite</em> on his second expedition to Greenland from 1891-1892 and she became the first woman to take part in an Arctic exploration. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">They wintered in McCormick Bay, approximately midway between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Josephine was an active participant in that, and all other voyages to Greenland, showing her talent as a hunter of raindeer, ptarmigan and other game for food and clothing. She also provided hearty meals to the entire party and on holidays made a special feast of sorts to lift the spirits of the crew who could not be with their families.</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">. </span></div><div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">During the 1891-1892 expedition, Josephine wrote the anthropological treasure, <em>My Arctic Journal</em> (1893), which provided the world an accurate, elaborate picture of Arctic geography and Inuit culture. In 1893, she again accompanied her husband to Greenland, and during this time she gave birth to a daughter, Marie Ahnighito Peary, less than thirteen degrees from the North Pole. Marie was famous for being the most northerly born white child and was nicknamed "Snow Baby" by both Eskimos and Americans. Her middle name honored the Eskimo woman who made Marie's first fur suit</span></div><div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpgXMLweWfI7LuoZPJ8c4LWHm-ifaduCnv-OaUxES_erbQ44AsS17giqQ5F9BwqmM3Ej8uTzFB6RjVZ-mUcCmqJ4H-kf4VmzQmApAftTUiA8eRhIqyvLV0mxQyJ1C5_42nthzG5fDW2sg/s1600/Josephine+Peary+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpgXMLweWfI7LuoZPJ8c4LWHm-ifaduCnv-OaUxES_erbQ44AsS17giqQ5F9BwqmM3Ej8uTzFB6RjVZ-mUcCmqJ4H-kf4VmzQmApAftTUiA8eRhIqyvLV0mxQyJ1C5_42nthzG5fDW2sg/s1600/Josephine+Peary+3.jpg" /></a></div><div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Josephine and Marie made a voyage to Greenland in 1897 and, in 1900, when she received word that Robert's toes were frozen and had to be amputated, she quickly set sail with a crew on the Windward. The vessel was damaged upon hitting an iceberg and was frozen in for the winter, during which <span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Josephine met Allakasingwah, Peary's pregnant Inuit lover. Yet, no matter how much Peary's infidelity must have pained her--in addition to his long absences--Josephine remained supportive of her husband.</span></span></span></div><div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Robert joined them on May 6, 1901. A voyage in 1902 to visit the Admiral completed Josephine's journeys to Greenland. The following year, she gave birth to a son Robert E. Peary, Jr. She published two additional books as a result of her Arctic experiences, <em>The Snow Baby</em> (1901) and <em>Children of the North</em> (1903).</div><div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">After Admiral Peary reached the Pole in 1909, the Pearys spent most of their time at their summer home built on Eagle Island, off Harpswell in Casco Bay. During the winter months, they lived in their permanent home in Portland. During her lifetime, Josephine was active in many organizations. She was a charter member of the National Geographic Society, the Philadelphia Geographic Society, the Appalachian Mountain Club and an honorary member of the Woman Geographers.</span></div><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">On May 6, 1955, Josephine was awarded the National Geographic Society's highest honor, their Medal of Achievement. This solid-gold, custom-designed award is one that very few women have ever received. After Admiral Peary's death in 1920, Josephine settled into a permanent home on Baxter Boulevard in Portland. She made a few public appearances, mostly to advocate for her husband's achievements or to tell stories of the Arctic. She spent most of her time with her children and grandchildren. She died on December 19, 1955 and was buried alongside her husband in Arlington National Cemetery.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-82582787518078312882012-03-14T16:21:00.003-04:002012-04-14T11:09:10.480-04:00Annie Smith Peck ~ Mountaineer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzpTeYpIusZ7FhtOnuCDqoVlWOPCsbaD-eB5xxtnmyd4pl56xdKkCl9EuIleAwvJ0y6wZPaPJqMMUBBT9lsjwRJ4PyUd3EcoF_mzRJAhI3FlNdHWu3djxj_YhXPYkWKXmbh2IGwdjBEc/s1600/Annie+Smith+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzpTeYpIusZ7FhtOnuCDqoVlWOPCsbaD-eB5xxtnmyd4pl56xdKkCl9EuIleAwvJ0y6wZPaPJqMMUBBT9lsjwRJ4PyUd3EcoF_mzRJAhI3FlNdHWu3djxj_YhXPYkWKXmbh2IGwdjBEc/s200/Annie+Smith+2.jpg" width="129" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><strong>Although one is not inclined to be timid or nervous, it is nevertheless a trifle depressing to receive letters full of expostulation and entreaty: "If you are determined to commit suicide, why not come home and do so in a quiet lady-like manner?"</strong></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Annie Smith Peck</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (October 19, 1850 – July 18, 1935) was an American mountaineer. She was born in Providence, RI into a wealthy family, which made it possible for her to get a good education. She attended the Rhode Island Normal School, graduating in 1872, and enrolled at the University of Michigan where she graduated in 1878 with a major in Greek and Classical Languages. Annie then went to Europe, where she continued her schooling at Hannover and Athens.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">From 1881 to 1892 she was a pioneering professor in the field of archaeology and Latin at Purdue and Smith College. She discovered her enthusiasm for mountaineering in 1885 and began to make money on the lecture circuit. By 1892, she gave up teaching and made her living by lecturing and writing about archeology, mountaineering and her travels. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Annie scaled a number of moderate-sized mountains in Europe and in the United States, including Mount Shasta. In 1895, she climbed the Matterhorn and suddenly became quite well known. She began to climb, lecture and explore in Latin America and promoted Pan-Americanism (peace between the Americas) and geographic education through her lectures, articles and books. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieFkIN-AJeXCZD-YSsBNH86RVgBGfWjoFO4nKMxlQ84QcYYlLB-UXqwSO3EEtC_1UmlAkotDwIr1XupLh3gDrvlNcPcXC8e84i7ePCxd3S95OKOKqe6T34vKEq3IQlTUdrIiKO85zu4XA/s1600/Annie+Smith+1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieFkIN-AJeXCZD-YSsBNH86RVgBGfWjoFO4nKMxlQ84QcYYlLB-UXqwSO3EEtC_1UmlAkotDwIr1XupLh3gDrvlNcPcXC8e84i7ePCxd3S95OKOKqe6T34vKEq3IQlTUdrIiKO85zu4XA/s200/Annie+Smith+1.gif" width="132" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1897 she climbed Mount Orizaba and Mount Popocatepetl in Mexico. Although, already over 50 years old, she wanted to make a very special climb and traveled to South America in 1903, looking for a mountain taller than Aconcagua in Argentina (6960 m). In 1904 she climbed Mount Sorata in Bolivia and, in 1908, was the first person to climb the northern peak of Mount Nevado Huascarán in Peru (<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">6648). In 1828 it was named <i>Cumbre Aña Peck</i> in her honor. (Note: </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Due to a severe snowstorm, Annie misjudged the measuring altitude by about 600 m, calculating it as 7300 m high. She was later shown incorrect from a recalculation done by Fanny Bullock Workman.)</span></span></span><br />
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</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Fourteen years later she climbed Yungay in Peru accompanied by two Swiss mountain guides. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She wrote a book about her experiences called <i>The Search for the Apex of America: High Mountain Climbing in Peru and Bolivia, including the Conquest of Huascaran, with Some Observations on the Country and People Below</i>. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Annie scaled mountains into her old age, including a first ascent of one of the peaks on the five peaked Mount Coropuna in Peru in 1908. After her return she wrote two books: <i>Industrial and Commercial South America</i> and <i>The South American Tour </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">and<i> A Descriptive Guide</i></span>. Both books were quite popular with diplomats, businessmen, corporations, politicians and tourists.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1929-30, she traveled by air around South America in order to show how easy and safe it was for tourists. Her journey was the longest by air by a North American traveler at the time. After her return, she published her fourth and last book <i>Flying Over South America: Twenty Thousand Miles by Air</i>. She </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">started a world tour in 1935 but, after visiting Greece, became ill and returned home to New York City. She died in 1935 and is buried in Providence, RI.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
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</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-54075173709557165672012-03-11T17:00:00.003-04:002012-04-14T11:09:40.006-04:00Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope ~ Archaeologist & Adventurer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzaphR2SKBzqCVmHfaIgZxK3v6fL6KjbRO7XfTrKtgy4eVILg6V2LuPJXjIss29ZWfXp8UbO853w4QXq6Ti5q0JuUxskFKWLf4QULygIgii9MaO0AsXd_QQ4MO8lU4T-AFCQuh_lr2_o/s1600/Hester+Stanhope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzaphR2SKBzqCVmHfaIgZxK3v6fL6KjbRO7XfTrKtgy4eVILg6V2LuPJXjIss29ZWfXp8UbO853w4QXq6Ti5q0JuUxskFKWLf4QULygIgii9MaO0AsXd_QQ4MO8lU4T-AFCQuh_lr2_o/s200/Hester+Stanhope.jpg" width="155" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (March 12, 1776 – June 23, 1839) was a British socialite, adventurer and traveler. Her archaeological expedition to Ashkelon in 1815 is considered the first modern excavation in the history of Holy Land archeology and her use of a medieval Italian document is described as "one of the earliest uses of textual sources by field archaeologists.”</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Hester was the eldest child of Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope by his first wife Lady Hester Pitt. She was born at her father's seat of Chevening and lived there until early in 1800, when she was sent to live with her grandmother, Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham, at Burton Pynsent.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In August 1803, she became chief of the household of her uncle, William Pitt the Younger. In his position as British Prime Minister. Pitt, who was unmarried, needed a hostess. Lady Hester sat at the head of his table and assisted in welcoming his guests; she became known for her beauty and conversational skills. When Pitt was out of office she served as his private secretary. Hester was also the prime initiator of the gardens at Walmer Castle during his tenure as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Britain awarded her an annual pension of £1200 after Pitt's death in January 1806. After living for some time at Montagu Square in London, she moved to Wales and left England for good in February 1810 after the death of her brother. A romantic disappointment is said to have prompted her decision to go on a long sea voyage.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Among her entourage were her physician and later biographer Charles Meryon, her maid, Anne Fry and Michael Bruce, who became her lover. It’s claimed that when they arrived in Athens, the poet, Lord Byron, dove into the sea to greet her. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZKaXn0HSIoZj5PjxFwUA6fwoHlp220lA6z0TDU2787rsKBtSYpoIuCVtnIMjRDUiy5c0glLVSow65wORd_eKJrYV4MpUAvKtZxZHDQ_po6ic7O-ZhmhkWL1nTNs_sroNY6l3OsLe1SB4/s1600/Hester+Stanhope+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZKaXn0HSIoZj5PjxFwUA6fwoHlp220lA6z0TDU2787rsKBtSYpoIuCVtnIMjRDUiy5c0glLVSow65wORd_eKJrYV4MpUAvKtZxZHDQ_po6ic7O-ZhmhkWL1nTNs_sroNY6l3OsLe1SB4/s200/Hester+Stanhope+2.jpg" width="155" /></a></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">From Athens they traveled to Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, and intended to proceed to Cairo, only recently emerged from the chaos following Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and the international conflicts that followed. En route to Cairo, the ship encountered a storm and was shipwrecked on Rhodes. With all their possessions gone, the party borrowed Turkish clothing. Hester refused to wear a veil, choosing the garb of a Turkish male: robe, turban and slippers. When a British frigate took them to Cairo, she bought a purple velvet robe, embroidered trousers, waistcoat, jacket, saddle and saber. In this costume she went to greet the Pasha. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">From Cairo she continued her travels in the Middle East. Over a period of two years she visited Gibraltar, Malta, the Ionian Islands, the Peloponnese, Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. She refused to wear a veil even in Damascus. In Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was cleared of visitors and reopened in her honor.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Learning from fortune-tellers that her destiny was to become the bride of a new messiah, she made matrimonial overtures to Ibn Saud, the chief of the Wahabies. She decided to visit the city of Palmyra, even though the route went through a desert with potentially hostile Bedouins. She dressed as a Bedouin and took with her a caravan of 22 camels to carry her baggage. Emir Mahannah el Fadel received her and she became known as "Queen Hester."</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She came into possession of a medieval Italian manuscript copied from the records of a monastery somewhere in Syria. According to this document, a great treasure was hidden under the ruins of a mosque at the port city of Ashkelon which had been lying in ruins for 600 years. In 1815, on the strength of this map, she traveled to the ruins of Ashkelon on the Mediterranean coast north of Gaza, and persuaded the Ottoman authorities to allow her to excavate the site. The governor of Jaffa, Abu Nabbut (Father of the Cudgel) was ordered to accompany her. This resulted in the first archaeological excavation in Palestine. While she did not find the hoard of three million gold coins reportedly buried there, the excavators unearthed a seven-foot headless marble statue. She ordered the statue to be smashed into “a thousand pieces” and thrown into the sea.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi64pHYYxDZ_63ET1qFZNHHf5Lk3mw-x35vkO10zRDI7TimVQr2nL5OaX5l-ryPK2-4UqU3U9bAEOMFSJg0wLKU8Fxr6yIZhgMe2QfnAKbl4HgtJuTSWU741_N4uTVFMjvgRpZzymfyOIE/s1600/Hester+Stanhope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi64pHYYxDZ_63ET1qFZNHHf5Lk3mw-x35vkO10zRDI7TimVQr2nL5OaX5l-ryPK2-4UqU3U9bAEOMFSJg0wLKU8Fxr6yIZhgMe2QfnAKbl4HgtJuTSWU741_N4uTVFMjvgRpZzymfyOIE/s200/Hester+Stanhope.jpg" width="152" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Hester settled near Sidon, a town on the Mediterranean coast in what is now Lebanon, about halfway between Tyre and Beirut. She lived first in the disused Mar Elias monastery at the village of Abra, and then in another monastery, Deir Mashmousheh, southwest of the Casa of Jezzine. Her companion, Miss Williams and medical attendant, Dr. Charles Meryon, remained with her for some time; Miss Williams died in 1828 and Meryon left in 1831, only returning for a final visit from July 1837 to August 1838. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">When Meryon left for England, Hester moved to a remote abandoned monastery at Joun, a village eight miles from Sidon, where she lived until her death. Her residence, known by the villagers as Dahr El Sitt, was at the top of a hill. Meryon implied that she liked the house because of its strategic location, "the house on the summit of a conical hill, whence comers and goers might be seen on every side." At first she was greeted by emir Bashir Shihab II, but over the years she gave sanctuary to hundreds of refugees of Druze inter-clan and inter-religious squabbles and earned his enmity. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In her new setting, she wielded almost absolute authority over the surrounding districts. Her control over the natives was enough to cause Ibrahim Pasha, when about to invade Syria in 1832, to seek her neutrality, and this supremacy was maintained by her commanding character and by the belief that she possessed the gift of divination. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She kept up a correspondence with important people and received curious visitors who went out of their way to visit her. Finding herself deeply in debt, her pension from England was used to pay off her creditors in Syria. She became a recluse and her servants began to take off with her possessions because she could not pay them. She would not receive visitors until dark and then would only let them see her hands and face. She wore a turban over her shaven head.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In 1846, some years after her death, Dr. Meryon published three volumes of <i>Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope as related by herself in Conversations with her Physician</i>, and these were followed in the succeeding year by three volumes of <i>Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, forming the Completion of her Memoirs narrated by her Physician</i>.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"> </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-43141953284575800712012-03-11T16:00:00.000-04:002012-04-11T14:23:23.169-04:00BBC Movie ~ Queen of the East<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jrRqL8kYqo8?fs=1" width="459"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58347238458211509.post-89880166971593594822012-03-10T16:45:00.008-05:002012-04-14T11:02:29.428-04:00Dame Freya Madeline Stark ~ Explorer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZhCKEU6YB6-hbQTsk2paIL-x86YvAlIyVsn9N5af3Un1ml-iknNOfJ1hKB8NU9RMWZzK5dFS1jfEt_jPlsER6rKALddABHj0bqPj3PLFf_rXEhO-R8RPsmYbQECH405rrRPeOIC-rADw/s1600/Freya+Stark+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="184" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZhCKEU6YB6-hbQTsk2paIL-x86YvAlIyVsn9N5af3Un1ml-iknNOfJ1hKB8NU9RMWZzK5dFS1jfEt_jPlsER6rKALddABHj0bqPj3PLFf_rXEhO-R8RPsmYbQECH405rrRPeOIC-rADw/s200/Freya+Stark+1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><strong><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"One life is an absurdly small allowance."</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Freya Madeline Stark (January 31, 1893 – May 9, 1993) was born at Paris, France. She was the eldest daughter of Robert and Flora Stark. Her mother was Italian born and it was there, two years later that Freya’s younger sister, Vera, was born. Her childhood years were divided between the hill towns of northern Italy and the moors of southwest England. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Although her roots remained in England, it was Italy that was to become her home. When Freya was eight, her mother took a house at Asolo, a small fortress town north-west of Venice. This little town in the foothills of the Dolomites remained her home in the intervals between her travels.<br />
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Freya had no formal schooling. Her haphazard early learning was put right by a gifted governess, and by the age of 10 she spoke English, Italian, German and French. It was not until she was 19 and entered Bedford College in London that her formal education began, but two years later the outbreak of war brought it to an end.<br />
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During the World War I, she trained as a nurse and served with a hospital unit on the Italian front. Peace brought years of poverty, family problems and increasing ill-health. After the war, her father emigrated to Canada and her parents’ eventually separated.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvrcRbWfZGgghn6rCEdphC4HG_CQJC05XG59QbGRMjeXKEiJzcU36ssJcSx-d0DJrKmDv90RIjnCmzTIWBr-2jfThHK2IxnQ_qnEahzUjS09e2imW7w_Wz0JkGQ7j-OV50p74oKz9WfsQ/s1600/Freya+Stark+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvrcRbWfZGgghn6rCEdphC4HG_CQJC05XG59QbGRMjeXKEiJzcU36ssJcSx-d0DJrKmDv90RIjnCmzTIWBr-2jfThHK2IxnQ_qnEahzUjS09e2imW7w_Wz0JkGQ7j-OV50p74oKz9WfsQ/s200/Freya+Stark+3.jpg" width="148" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">In Italy, Freya built up a modestly profitable market garden business. Some of her hard-earned money went to Arabic lessons which she took from an Italian monk. By 1927, with a course in Arabic and Persian at the London School of Oriental Studies behind her, her “traveler’s prelude,” as she called it, was complete.<br />
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Freya’s first Middle Eastern trip began in November 1927. She spent the winter at Brummana, Lebanon, some time in Damascus and completed her first proper expedition through the then Jabal Druze country with a friend. Her book on this expedition, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Letters from Syria</i>, wasn't published until 1942.<br />
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In 1928 she visited the United States, sailing aboard the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">SS Athenia</i> on October 19 from Glasgow, Scotland to the Quebec, Canada and crossing the border into the United States on October 28 as a tourist with a 14 day visa. It’s worth noting that the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Athenia</i> was the first British ship to be sunk by Germany in World War II.<br />
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In 1929 she was again in Lebanon and on her way to Baghdad. There she established herself in the house of a shoemaker overlooking the Tigris, much to the disgust of the British community, which considered such behavior “a flouting of national prestige.” Her time in Baghdad resulted in her first book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Baghdad Sketches</i> (1933). She used Baghdad as a base for three tough solo journeys into Iran between 1929 and 1931: two in Luristan and one in the mountains of Mazanderan, south of the Caspian Sea. Out of these journeys came <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Valleys of the Assassins</i>, the book which made her name as a writer.<br />
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The first truly Arabian journey came in the winter of 1934-35. Freya was only the third European woman to travel into the Arabian interior and the first to go there alone. Her goal was to be the first European to reach Shabwa, the abandoned site of the original capital city of the kingdom of Hadhramaut. She traveled from Mukalla on the coast, northward to Shibam and Sayun. The expedition ended with her rescue by the Royal Air Force (operating from Aden) after she contracted measles en route. After a long recovery she returned to Arabia in winter 1937, again starting from Mukalla and ending in 1938 when she became ill with dengue fever. These journeys were recorded in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Southern Gates of Arabia</i> (1936), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seen in the Hadramaut</i> (1938) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Winter in Arabia</i> (1940).<br />
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During World War II she was commissioned by the British Government to help counteract German influence among the Arabs. She went on a diplomatic mission to the Yemen, and in Cairo helped to found the Arab Brotherhood of Freedom. Later, she was also sent on missions to Canada and India. Toward the end of the war she was also sent to the United States to counter Zionist propaganda against the British government in Palestine.<br />
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In 1947, despite being told by friends that he was homosexual, Freya married Stewart Henry Perowne, a distinguished Orientalist and British colonial administrator. Stewart was the grandson of Bishop John James Stewart Perowne, whom she accompanied to posts in Barbados and Cyrenaica. The marriage was short lived and was dissolved in 1952. At the time she was writing her autobiography, three volumes appeared in swift succession: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Traveler’s Prelude</i> (1950), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beyond the Euphrates</i> (1951) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Coast of Incense</i> (1953). A fourth volume, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dust in the Lion’s Paw</i>, dealing with the war years, came out in 1961.<br />
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Now in her 60s, Freya was looking once more for new worlds to conquer and found them in Anatolia and its history. She learned Turkish with the aid of Turkish detective stories and made several arduous journeys, often on horseback, in the remote parts of Turkey. Out of these came <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ionia: A Quest</i> (1954), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lycian Shore</i> (1956), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alexander’s Path</i> (1958), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Riding to the Tigris</i> (1959) and finally, the product of three years’ concentrated labor, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rome on the Euphrates</i> (1966), a scholarly study of Rome’s eastern limits.<br />
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Freya continued traveling well on into her late 80s – on horseback in Nepal and the Pamirs, down the Euphrates on a raft. Later in the 1980s, for the first time in her life, she traveled as a tourist, to the legendary caravan cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent and, at the age of 89, returned to the Middle East to visit Jerusalem.<br />
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In 1972 Freya was created a Dame of the British Empire. She died at the age of 100 on May 9, 1993 in Asolo, the village in the foothills of the Dolomites that she had made her home.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHf3k-SYg9OWW8LkKAB3IJ2zTTX6mT2lbNAoOyvG7rtw2Sr7Y_MYOiWm3rumqQ3Il9E8I3CQ82fPBACVEBFswGkExuhYyP4v00jFqNKlZtcL6dfrnqzakIKNpvYwTJBDkzsNmTZmZo_0/s1600/Freya+Stark+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHf3k-SYg9OWW8LkKAB3IJ2zTTX6mT2lbNAoOyvG7rtw2Sr7Y_MYOiWm3rumqQ3Il9E8I3CQ82fPBACVEBFswGkExuhYyP4v00jFqNKlZtcL6dfrnqzakIKNpvYwTJBDkzsNmTZmZo_0/s1600/Freya+Stark+4.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOWZBUaZYm5SZMtuUnXjfazbT0i1KhT_DBkSI7x3Ghyxr57ykg5dfeT7e8lboj233mj33RDrgyzXNfUz88dA6o2Wlm8yQt4ryrV7zSV3hWucHYJmGYrCV37SSBpqagR_WEHU9YyH7qtM/s1600/aaw.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="40" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOWZBUaZYm5SZMtuUnXjfazbT0i1KhT_DBkSI7x3Ghyxr57ykg5dfeT7e8lboj233mj33RDrgyzXNfUz88dA6o2Wlm8yQt4ryrV7zSV3hWucHYJmGYrCV37SSBpqagR_WEHU9YyH7qtM/s200/aaw.gif" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">17 - 23 April 2003<br />
Issue No. 634</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/634/bsc10.htm">Freya's Letters from Baghdad 1920</a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWa1zH07LWXAovXCrMKwFsENCZJHmGJtQX8PIu3AQEN-sMQCaqEc3BRLxy_pFB_V8aZYiPcBRGGs2yTwUpDVe7qbY77bZKgBafvqho4bjJZg5hI9BtETh-c4jYKEqHmILEn2jJ1UXStg/s1600/blocks.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWa1zH07LWXAovXCrMKwFsENCZJHmGJtQX8PIu3AQEN-sMQCaqEc3BRLxy_pFB_V8aZYiPcBRGGs2yTwUpDVe7qbY77bZKgBafvqho4bjJZg5hI9BtETh-c4jYKEqHmILEn2jJ1UXStg/s1600/blocks.bmp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Great Lives</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Series 19</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00m6c3y">Travel writer Dervla Murphy discussed the life of Freya Stark</a></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0