Introduction: Women on Their Own Today it strikes us as perfectly obvious that women are free to go walking on their own without worry, ramble about in nature, climb, and even scale mountains. Yet surprisingly, for a long time women were permitted to venture out alone on foot to only a limited degree, even as late as the beginning of the 20th century. Why was this so? Do men and women really walk differently, as much-disputed gender-oriented (neurological) theories and movement research suggest? In fact, recent studies of the unequal endurance levels in running between men and women, physiologically based, have discovered that different areas of the brain are activated and that that there is different, gender-specific perception and evaluation of movement. Given such evidence, a study of the history of women walking can be both informative and surprisingly timely. In this book the history of women walking and hiking, mostly in Central Europe, is told for the first time on the basis of documents from the fine arts and photography-most created by men-that reflect the male view. Its special charm is the way these are juxtaposed to gripping and amusing literary excerpts-from novels, autobiographies, and diaries-by self-confident women about their love of walking. There have always been courageous women, and so-called aimless rambles and even mountain climbs by women are documented as early as the sixteenth century, with the dawning of a new view of nature. Since they are only isolated examples, however, they are not included in the present publication. Nor does it discuss the participation of women (as companions and bearers) on pilgrimages. The motif of the woman walker appears with particular frequency in the literature and fine art of the waning 18th and 19th centuries. What made walking and hiking in general so significant in this period? What role did women play in their new popularity, and where and in what context do they first appear in art? It is apparent that at first strolling and promenading were activities largely limited to the aristocracy and wealthy burghers. Outings (by coach or on foot) were part of the daily routine, which after late rising, receiving and dealing with visitors, enjoying the midday meal and writing letters, culminated in an evening of theater and dancing. Pictures of courtly promenades in parks and gardens are accordingly appear quite early. There were fixed rules of behavior and dress for courtiers strolling among extensive geometrical and strictly symmetrical flower beds, trimmed hedges, pools, sculptures, and groomed stands of trees. In such amusements the nobility, following the French example, was largely cut off from the outside world, turning to the outdoors for relaxation and refreshment, for contemplation and intimate encounters. In baroque gardens even noblewomen might walk alone, for in the form of a walled enclosure the garden had forever been seen as a refuge for women. Their obligatory daily stroll in the garden, where they might see and be seen, was simply a part of aristocratic life, and was considered confirmation of their social standing. Beginning in the second half of the 18th century the bourgeoisie increasingly took up the practice of the leisurely stroll as well, as parks and gardens became accessible to the public. Yet before and around 1800 it was still only a privileged minority that could flaunt its status by taking walks at any time of day. Encounters with "riffraff" were discouraged, and the entrances to grounds treasured by the aristocracy and wealthy upper classes were closely monitored. This was partly out of fear of having to witness vulgar behavior. It was reported that in English parks, for example, it was apparently not uncommon for men to relieve themselves within view of passing strollers, turning to face the shrubbery so as not to be recognized. A new spirit gave rise in the years between roughly 1770 and 1830 to what writers of the period referred to as "sentimental walks," on which men and women might freely indulge in intellectual conversation. For now for the first time there were any number of full-time women writers like Sophie von La Roche, Johanna Schopenhauer, and Dorothea Schlegel, who took up the subjects of walking and hiking and practiced them themselves with relish. In general, however, female promenaders were still confined to landscaped gardens or urban parks, and etiquette demanded that they be accompanied; Johanna Schopenhauer (1766-1838) remarked that "Promenading in public places . . . without a male escort is considered unseemly." Even so, bolder woman dared to take longer solitary walks, selecting out-of-the-way footpaths through meadows, fields, and forests. And for women of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie going beyond the socially accepted communal walk and Sunday stroll took particular courage. Women who routinely set out alone on foot belonged to the lower classes. For them, usually with only limited means, getting around on foot, even over longer distances, was an existential necessity. Yet unlike indigent men they were subjected to scorn or even accused of being prostitutes. By contrast, noble and bourgeois women undertook longer journeys in the protective enclosure of coaches. The extent to which women's perception of the world was determined by what they saw looking out of coach windows was described in exemplary manner by Sophie von La Roche in her 1771 novel Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (The History of Lady Sophie Sternheim). The restriction on women's mobility contrasted sharply with the freedom of movement encouraged among men. To the German writer and hiker Johann Gottfried Seume (1763-1810) walking was unquestionably a masculine option: "The man who walks sees . . . more than the one who rides. I consider voluntary walking a man's most honorable and independent activity . . . seated in a carriage one is removed from ordinary humanity. . . . Riding (in either a coach or a carriage) is indicative of impotence, walking of strength." Seume's view that choosing to walk as opposed to riding enhanced one's knowledge of the world dates from a time when coaching had become accessible to a larger segment of the populace, and moving about on foot was to some extent the exception. Yet it was essentially restricted to men, for walking-and this was the point-liberated a person from the confinement of urban housing by leading him into the openness of nature, providing physical exercise but also stimulating independent thought. To Enlightment thinking the bourgeois walk thus proved to be an important symbolic act critical of culture and society. For the duration of a walk in nature the a man might turn his back on the feudal order and think of himself as a free agent capable of standing on his own feet. The enlightened burgher was accordingly encouraged to undertake daily walks, better yet hikes, in all weathers. In the 18th century bourgeois women, increasingly relegated to the home, were obviously given the same encouragement to only a limited degree. To be sure, enlightened writers recommended daily walks to strengthen their bodies, even doing away with their confining corsets and the high-heeled shoes that made walking precarious, but this was primarily so that they might bear healthy children. Walking benefitted their health, of great importance given their destiny as mothers. The subordination of woman was no longer based on religion but on anthropology, which noted men's and women's different constitutions and the latter's relative physical weakness. It is therefore easy to see that the notion of toughening the frail female body and psyche in line with Enlightenment theory led to such writings on the education of girls as Joachim Heinrich Campe's (1746-1818) 1789 Väterlicher Rath für meine Tochter (Fatherly Advice for My Daughter), in which he recommended walking and hiking for strength as well as the morally beneficial occupation of the female sex with plants and nature. Walks undertaken independently, and certainly solitary ones with relish, were undesirable, however, and considered damaging, as women could only enjoy nature in company with others. So until well into the nineteenth century female walkers generally continued to be chaperoned as the objects of bridal searches. As Johanna Schopenhauer confirmed: "Without being followed by a servant, or in the absence of one by her maid, no woman of the higher classes would have ventured (on foot) even the shortest distance along the street." So the bourgeois woman's range of movement remained limited, her walks confined to the familiar terrain of the surrounding, generally cultivated landscape. This makes the testimony of women of the time who discovered the pleasures of walking and hiking in nature on their own all the more striking. They set their sights on a wider world, and made their way out into nature in order to enjoy its beauty. They were not so much moved to investigate it scientifically with Enlightenment curiosity, for as the emancipated early Romantic writer Dorothea Schlegel (1764-1839) relates in her novel Florian, methodical researches in untamed nature, Alpine rambles, even long-distance daylong hikes were transgressive, and fraught with incalculable risks and dangers. It was considered reckless for a woman to walk in a forest or meadow with or without a male escort. This in part because her physical and mental powers were supposedly insufficiently developed, her clothing too restrictive-as indeed it was-and also because to the Romantics the traversed landscape, as a reflection of one's own inner nature (risky for women), opened up possibilities for self-discovery. The mountain world was a man's domain. Mountains held all manner of terrors and dangers, even nightmarish situations to which the weaker sex was better not exposed. Even so, this did not prevent a few bold women from climbing mountains as early as the beginning of the 19th century. Their exploits were generally downplayed by male critics, and they were at first excluded from membership in the numerous Alpine societies founded after of the middle of the century. Women who undertook long walks and mountain treks were even more likely to be accused of a loss of femininity than those who took solitary walks close to home. They also ran the risk of possible sexual assault. Yet noblewomen, especially, deliberately broke with convention in climbing mountains, though at first accompanied by men, and in doing so demonstrated a new freedom. They experienced what Jean-Jacques Rousseau had celebrated in his 1782 Confessions: "Solitary walks [on which] we rambled from hill to hill and wood to wood, sometimes in the sun, but oftener in the shade, resting from time to time." After the French Revolution and the declaration of citizens' and human rights, walking became a visible symbol of a general desire for freedom: fences fell, parks and palace gardens were opened to the public, and geometrical, carefully trimmed garden layouts were condemned as violations of nature and replaced by expansive landscaped parks. In the 19th century the innovative cultural practice of the bourgeoisie solidified into a full-blown ideology of walking. Whereas in the preceding century rambles and hikes in open country were preferred, promenading and leisurely strolling were now the rage, with emphasis on amusement. One could say that the settings for walks shifted from unspoiled nature-fields, forests, meadows, shores, lakes, brooks, mountains, and valleys-to a cultivated nature, to urban parks open to all, allées, boulevards, streets, and squares. This is directly associated with urban planning in the nineteenth century, in which hygienic issues came to be considered and urban green areas were set aside as buffers against the noise and the stink of early industrialization. Strolls in urban or suburban parks and gardens were supposed to provide the illusion a stay in the country in natural surroundings. In addition, thanks to the slightly raised and dry sidewalks along boulevards and shopping streets, added in Paris beginning in mid century and imitated everywhere in Europe, for the first time made it possible to walk safely in one's city clothes. This gave rise to the figure of the flaneur so frequently described in literature, the man who on his aimless urban strolls simply takes in the changing scene. Like the virtually invisible flaneuse, he was a product of urbanization and mercantilism. Both are depicted in art and literature in this context, though to a different degree. But given 19th-century bourgeois conventions, women's freedom of movement outside the home was limited, unlike that of men. Walking on a street alone they risked social condemnation and even sexual assault, for without an attendant male they exhibited a want of status and could be suspected of being prostitutes. Well-bred women had no business being alone on the Parisian boulevard with its coffeehouses, shops, and big-city bustle. The French writer Honoré de Balzac insisted that only women of dubious reputation strolled there, that decent women might venture there only en passant for shopping and window-gazing. The boulevard was considered the province of the gregarious bourgeois male, whereas public gardens and parks provided "natural" outdoor space for women and children, and became favorite motifs for artists. In fact it was only toward the end of the nineteenth century that it became possible for women to walk alone in urban spaces without having their virtue questioned. Female roles had been fixed within the bourgeois glorification of the family. Over the course of the century the family had become an ideal refuge, a completely independent world morally superior to the public sphere. Yet beginning in mid-century this "idyll" was faced with a new threat-the emancipated woman. According to 19th-century bourgeois ideology, woman's true vocation was serving as housewife and mother, maintaining the family's moral standards and sense of order. Activities like reading and unbridled excess were possible ways to escape social conventions. And in fact women's solitary walks and love of reading can be seen as the first sparks of their modern emancipation. But whereas the woman reading was a distinctly up-to-date motif in the art of the nineteenth century, especially in Impressionism, the woman walking alone or hiking in primeval nature remained largely undocumented. Obviously spring and summer were the favored seasons for city walks and promenades, as they promised the greatest degree of comfort and pleasure. The chosen times of day varied from epoch to epoch; the morning walks of the 18th century were joined in the 19th by evening strolls in moonlight. Whereas in the 18th century it was still possible for the nobility to be seen walking any day of the week, in the waning 18th and early 19th centuries one came to encounter the urban bourgeoisie on Sundays and holidays, often after the midday meal, and at the end of the 19th century, once regulated working hours had been introduced, in the evening as well. Public promenades increasingly gave way to more intimate outings, while the Sunday family stroll played an ever greater role and was accordingly pictured by any number of artists. Also important by this time were walks along the seashore and beach, on lakeshore promenades, and at spas, all for their hygienic value as emphasized in the late 19th century's various reform movements. Idling in the fresh air together with physical movement in nature combined the positive values of recreation, pleasure, sociability, and nature experience. Astonishingly, in this context ladies might undertake walks quite alone without endangering their reputations. Such scenes are part of the artistic repertoire. As Honoré de Balzac explained in 1831 in his theory of walking and observations of the elegant life, in them fashion played a prominent role: "What indelible joy it is . . . to encounter in the streets of Paris, on the boulevards, those women who . . . know how to adapt to the modest role of a pedestrian, for they know how a pedestrian ought to dress." There were still clothing restrictions for the various classes before the French Revolution, but ladies in the 19th century were subject to a universal fashion that had come into being with democracy. Accordingly, from the beginning the basic appointments of the female pedestrian included such accessories as the walking stick, in which perfume flasks might be hidden, the compulsory hat, gloves, and shawl, and a bag containing handwork, for a repectable lady was never to appear inactive. And if she was in fact alone, up to the beginning of the 20th century she often carried with her an edifying book, in which she might become engrossed while walking. Nature thus became a backdrop to emotions inspired by literature. Or put another way, it was experienced and discovered through reading. No less popular since the 19th century were companion animals, preferably dogs on a long leash. If a woman was pictured accompanied by a family member, either they walked hand in hand, she was closely closely embraced (a motif already found in pictures from the 15th century), or they locked arms. Pictures of mothers and nursemaids with children frequently include the children's toys. Social convention dictated not only dress and accessories, but also a woman's behavior during her walk; ideally she was to proceed without haste, at a comfortable and relaxed pace, pausing to rest when she pleased or stopping to admire something, greet an acquaintance, or chat. Unmarried women were for a long time accompanied by chaperones (frequently women friends or family members). Very different rules applied to hikes and climbs in uncivilized, rugged terrain. These were seen not only as athletic activities but also as challenging and at times dangerous struggles against natural forces and a wilderness in which one might prevail only thanks to a "spirit of defiance." These therefore seemed unsuited to the weaker sex. Around 1900 it was still said that women should be prevented from mountain climbing; "they are an offense to society and look like Indian women." Nevertheless, women were increasingly drawn to solitary hikes in untamed nature as well as the mountain world, traditionally a male preserve, which they boldly fought for step by step, and at times shattering all social convention, clothing restrictions, and norms of female appearance and behavior. Gradually, with their courageous pioneering achievements like climbing peaks in winter they found entry into the hiking and mountain societies that multiplied after the mid 19th century. Bourgeois women mountain climbers had prominent models, among them such noblewomen as Empress Elisabeth of Austria. In the late 1880s one of the best-known woman Alpinists was the Englishwoman Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed (1861-1934), referred to after her third marriage as Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, an unusually emancipated and highly gifted woman. She not only discovered the mountain world for herself, she also emerged as one of the first female Alpine photographers and writers of books on Alpine climbing. Her climbing career began in 1882, when she twice tackled Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps. Her first attempt was aborted owing to inadequate footwear, useless little boots. In 1901 she dared something outrageous: a mountain tour without a male guide, anticipating the female Alpine clubs that came into being years later. With her pioneering achievements she shattered all social norms, and was well aware of it: in her memoirs published in 1928 she wrote: "I am above all grateful to the mountains for having freed me from the fetters of convention." Thanks to the emancipatory reform movements of the second half of the 19th century women's fashions underwent dramatic changes. The corset was abandoned, as were tall, constricting shoes-even the pale complexion that up into the first quarter of the 20th century counted as an essential attribute of feminine beauty. The first female pioneers had worn white flannel dresses, tight-fitting boots, or soon enough water-soaked cloth shoes. For a long time comfortable trousers continued to be taboo, as it was held that they were unflattering and tended to make them look masculine. Even so, daring women mountain climbers wore trousers under their skirts, which they removed as soon as they were certain no one was watching. Women finally gained new freedoms at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century. Walking and hiking, the most adventuresome set out as botanists, painters of plants and landscapes, to explore and conquer nature. From this time on they might undertake solitary treks in untamed nature. Whereas the first female mountain climbers after 1800 were still accompanied by male guides, now all-female rope teams became increasingly common. Modern man has been fascinated and challenged by wilderness. The conquest of mountains takes great effort and is fraught with danger, but though daunting it can also be seductive. Confronting unspoiled nature, whether scaling a rock face or hiking through trackless mountain forests, can produce a special feeling of happiness. Any number of modern women writers have confessed to a passion for walking, a virtual addiction to the interplay of muscles, senses, and consciousness, of free association, concentration, and memory. One of these was the Englishwoman Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), a devoted walker. For her seemingly aimless London rambles she deliberately chose the muted light of dusk. Her long, brisk daily walks, her miles-long treks in Sussex and along the coast of Cornwall were, as she put it in her diaries, important for her literary creativity, for her discerning view of the world. At the beginning of the 20th century writers like Virginia Woolf, representative of their sex, finally claimed what the spirit of the Enlightenment had called for, but what had so long been denied to women-walking as a means of self-discovery and experience of the world. "The best climber needs to take a seat at the top: there one has the most delicious view far out across the low shrubbery onto a plain ringed by mountains and filled with patches of forest, vineyards, villages, ancient ruins."Johanna Kinkel, 1810-1858 Excerpted from Women Walking: Freedom, Adventure, Independence by Thomas Bleitner, Karin Sagner All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
