Ida Laura Pfeiffer (14 October 1797 – 27 October 1858), née Reyer, a famous early female Austrian professional traveler who became an explorer, ethnographer, and travel writer; her bestselling journals were translated into seven languages. She journeyed an estimated by land and by sea through Southeast Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa, and made two trips around the world between 1846 and 1855. Though a member of the geographical societies of both Paris and Berlin, she was denied membership by the Royal Geographical Society in London as it forbade the election of women before 1913.
Early life
Ida Laura Reyer was born on 14 October 1797 in Vienna, in the Habsburg monarchy, to Anna Reyer and Aloys Reyer, a wealthy textile manufacturer. She was one of seven children, with five brothers and a younger sister.
Encouraged by her father, she received an education similar to that of her brothers, which was unusual for girls of her social class at the time. She was allowed considerable freedom as a child, preferred boys' clothing, and enjoyed sports and outdoor activity. In her later autobiographical writings she described herself as "wild as a boy, and bolder and more forward than my elder brothers".
Around 1802, when she was about five years old, she accompanied her family on a journey to Palestine and Egypt. She later recalled that this early experience of travel left a lasting impression on her imagination and interest in distant places.
Her father died in 1806, when she was about eight or nine years old. After his death, her mother Anna rejected the unconventional upbringing he had encouraged and insisted that she conform to more traditional expectations for girls, including wearing dresses and taking piano lessons.
In 1809, Vienna was occupied by the forces of Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars. French troops were quartered in private homes throughout the city, including the Reyer household. During a military review at Schönbrunn Palace, she later recalled turning her back as the generals rode past, an act she described as a protest against the foreign occupation.
She was introduced to exploration literature by her tutor, Franz Josef Trimmel. She developed a strong interest in travel narratives, particularly Robinson Crusoe, and in the scientific writings of the explorer Alexander von Humboldt. Pfeiffer would later meet Humboldt in Berlin.
On 1 May 1820, at the age of twenty-two, she married Dr. Mark Anton Pfeiffer, a forty-six-year-old lawyer in Lemberg in Galicia, then part of the Austrian Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine). He was a widower with an adult son from his first marriage. The couple moved to Lemberg about a week after their wedding.
Dr. Pfeiffer soon lost his position after exposing corruption among senior government officials in Galicia and found it difficult to secure further employment. The family's financial situation deteriorated, and Pfeiffer travelled repeatedly between Lemberg and Vienna to support the household. She earned money by giving drawing and music lessons and occasionally borrowed money from her brothers.
Two sons were born in Vienna: Alfred in 1821 and Oscar in 1824. She also had a daughter who lived only a few days.
In 1831, after the death of her mother, Pfeiffer received a small inheritance that modestly improved the family's finances and allowed her to continue the education of her sons. By 1833, she was living in Vienna with the boys while her husband remained in Lemberg near his son from his first marriage, visiting the family in Vienna only occasionally. Travels Istanbul, Jerusalem, and Iceland (1842–1845)
At 45 years old with her sons grown and settled in secure employment, Pfeiffer was finally able to fulfill her childhood dream of traveling to foreign places. She later wrote in Reise nach dem skandinavischen Norden und der Insel Island im Jahre 1845 ("Visit to Iceland and the Scandinavian North," 2 vols., Leipzig, 1845): When I was but a little child, I had already a strong desire to see the world. Whenever I met a travelling-carriage, I would stop involuntarily, and gaze after it until it had disappeared; I used even to envy the postilion, for I thought he also must have accomplished the whole long journey.
In 1842, she first traveled along the River Danube to Istanbul, from there she continued to Jerusalem, stopping at Smyrna, Rhodes, Cyprus, Beirut, Caesarea, and Jaffa. She returned to Beirut on 10 July 1842 and sailed for Egypt. She visited Alexandria, Cairo, and the Red Sea before returning home via Rome. Among those she met on the trip was landscape painter Hubert Sattler, the British artist William Henry Bartlett, and the Bohemian botanist, Count Friedrich von Berchtold.
She published an anonymous account of her journey in Reise einer Wienerin in das Heilige Land ("A Vienna woman's trip to the Holy Land," 2 vols., Vienna, 1844). In return, she received 700 florins to fund her next trip. The book was an instant success. It went through three editions and was translated into Czech in 1846 and English in 1852.
In 1845, Pfeiffer set out to Scandinavia and Iceland. In preparation for her travel, she studied English and Danish as well as how to preserve natural specimens and take daguerreotypes. The adventure began on 10 April 1845. She traveled from Vienna to Copenhagen, then boarded the Johann on 4 May, reaching Hafnarfjörður on the southwest coast of Iceland in eleven days. She rode to Reykjavík on horseback and toured the geothermal area of Krýsuvík. She proceeded to visit the Golden Falls and climb the volcano Mount Hekla. After her return to Denmark, she took a small steamer north to Gothenburg, Sweden and from there, went further north to Norway.
She came back to Vienna on 4 October 1845 and published her journal the following year: Reise nach dem skandinavischen Norden und der Insel Island ("Trip to the Scandinavian North and the island of Iceland," Pest, 1846). English translations of the book appeared in Britain and the US in 1852.
First trip round the world (1846–1848)
In 1846, Pfeiffer started on a journey round the world, visiting Brazil, Chile and other countries of South America, Tahiti, China, India, Persia, Asia Minor and Greece, returning to Vienna in 1848. The results were published in Eine Frauenfahrt um die Welt ("A Woman's Journey round the World," 3 vols., Vienna, 1850).
She boarded the Danish brig Caroline, sailing southwest from Hamburg out into the Atlantic and across the equator, entering the harbor of Rio de Janeiro on 16 September 1846. Along with Friedrich von Berchtold, she traveled up the Macacu River to Nova Friburgo in southeastern Brazil and ventured deep into the forest, accompanied by a single servant. Upon her return to Rio, she booked a spot on the English barque John Renwick and set off for Chile, arriving at Valparaíso on 2 March 1847. She then sailed to the island of Tahiti before disembarking in Macao on the coast of China on 9 July.
For the next two months, she visited temples and villages in Hong Kong, went on a hunting excursion in Singapore, toured Colombo and Kandy, inquired about Bengali traditions in Calcutta, and visited the holy city of Benares. From Delhi, she arranged a bullock cart to Bombay under the advisement of Austrian scholar Aloys Sprenger, passing through Hyderabad and the Daulatabad Fort and the Ellora Caves in Aurangabad.
On 23 April 1848, she left Bombay for Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman Empire. While exploring the ruins of the ancient city of Ctesiphon, she encountered Prince Emam Qoli Mirza of the Qajar dynasty. She proceeded to tour the archaeological sites of Babylon, Borsippa, and Nineveh, facilitated by the British Resident Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and Hormuzd Rassam, the British Vice-Consul at Mosul. During the month of Ramadan, she visited local homes in Tabriz, the capital of Azerbaijan (now East Azerbaijan Province in Iran), and was presented to the Vicegerent, Bahman Mirza.
In August 1848, she set out for Nakhchivan bordering Armenia, and soon joined a caravan heading for Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. She then crossed the Black Sea into the Russian Empire.
A Woman's Journey Round the World was published in 1850 in three volumes, two years after Pfeiffer's return to Vienna. English translations appeared in Britain in 1851, followed by Dutch (1852), French (1858), and Russian (1867). The book garnered reviews in major international journals, such as Le Constitutionnel, The Athenaeum, The Westminster Review, The Literary Gazette, The Straits Times, and Calcutta Review.
Second trip round the world (1851–1855)
To fund her next expedition, Pfeiffer sold 300 guilders worth of specimens to the Royal Museum of Vienna. Carl von Schreibers, director of the Viennese natural history collections, and Austrian archaeologist Josef von Arneth applied for governmental funding on her behalf on the grounds that she had proven herself skilled at procuring rare specimens from far corners of the world. As a result, Pfeiffer was awarded 1,500 guilders.
In 1851, she set off to Berlin where she was met with an enthusiastic audience. Among them was her childhood hero, Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt, whose travels in the Americas inspired a great number of contemporary scientists and naturalists, including Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Ernst Haeckel. Pfeiffer was also welcomed by German geographer and cartographer Carl Ritter who was, at the time, professor of geography at the University of Berlin and with whom she would continue to collaborate after her departure. Both Humboldt and Ritter supported her, and as a result she became the first woman to be awarded the honorary membership of the Geographical Society of Berlin.Imhof, Viola, "Pfeiffer, Ida" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 20 (2001), S. 320-321 [Online-Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118740792.html#ndbcontent From Hamburg, Pfeiffer set sail to London and met with paleontologist Richard Owen, an outspoken critic of Charles Darwin, geographer Augustus Petermann for his expertise on Africa, and William Bartlett, her traveling companion to Jerusalem.
On 27 May 1851, Pfeiffer departed for Cape Town, South Africa. She arrived on 11 August and soon sent a box of specimens to Vincenz Kollar, curator of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. She had intended to penetrate deeper into Africa, but her hopes proved impracticable in light of overwhelming expenses.
She proceeded across the Indian Ocean to the Malay Archipelago, spending two weeks in Singapore where she collected a new species of mole cricket in addition to fish, seaweed, and crustaceans. She spent eighteen months in the Sunda Islands, accompanied by Captain John Brooke, the nephew and heir of Sir James Brooke. She visited the Dayaks of Borneo and became one of the first explorers to report on the traditions of the Bataks in Sumatra and the Malukus. Along the way, she encountered Sultan Abdu'l Rashid Muhammad Jamal ud-din of the principality of Sintang, renowned ichthyologist Dr Pieter Bleeker in Batavia (present-day Jakarta), and Colonel van der Hart at Bukittinggi in West Sumatra. She was granted permission to enter the territories of local villages where she observed dance performances, acquired a finely carved tunggal panaluan, and accumulated a collection of valuable specimens, including ray-finned fish (Homalopterula gymnogaster) and checker barb (Puntius oligolepis).