1. Leopoldine, Empress of Brazil (1797–1826)

It was a life both short and full of suffering that fell to Maria Leopoldine Josepha Caroline of Austria, daughter of Francis I. But despite the ravages of her bleak and violent marriage, Leopoldine would play an indispensable role in the fate of the Brazilian nation. In May of 1817, she was married per procurationem to Portugal’s Crown Prince Pedro of Braganza, whose family had sought refuge in Brazil from Napoleon’s occupation of Portugal. The union had been arranged personally by Austria’s Prince Metternich and brought Leopoldine, who was 20 years old at the time, to Rio de Janeiro, where she would reside together with her husband at the Portuguese court. She thus conceded to follow the path accorded her by her hereditary status, and was able only in a very limited fashion to continue pursuing her true passion—scientific research. But she did not let this prevent her from bringing numerous scientists to her adopted country, or from conducting—insofar as it was possible—her own investigations. As a highly educated and intelligent woman, she provided constant political advice to her husband and eventually convinced him to declare Brazil’s independence from Portugal in 1822. This astute move ultimately led to the crowning of Pedro as Emperor of Brazil, with Leopoldine becoming Empress. The years that followed saw her marriage grow increasingly clouded by Pedro’s abusive behaviour and infidelity, and did not live to see age 30. Leopoldine passed away in 1826, ten days after the miscarriage of her eighth child—and presumably as a consequence of her husband’s abuse.

2. Ida Pfeiffer, travel writer (1797–1858)

Ida Pfeiffer, née Reyer, was a “late bloomer”. She grew up largely in the company of her five brothers, sharing both their clothing and their interests. Following her father’s death, however, her mother took on the task of raising and clothing her daughter in conformance with the notions of that era. Ida would never lose her robust and determined nature. But it was only in her early 40s, after separating from the lawyer Mark Anton Pfeiffer, whom she had married at age 23 due more to pragmatic considerations than to emotional magnetism, that said determination would once again become evident. Putting her dreams of traveling and researching into practice, she overcame the life that she had previously lived, which had been rather conventional and run according to predetermined patterns. 1842 saw Ida Pfeiffer embark from Vienna on what would be a nine-month sojourn in the Middle East. This was immediately followed by her first trip around the world. Between 1846 and 1848, she visited countries including Brazil, Chile, Tahiti, India, and China, from where she brought back a collection of insects, plants, and minerals, some of which can still be seen today in Vienna’s Museum of Natural History. Three years later, she set out to explore South Africa, Southeast Asia, and North and South America. Her final trip, in 1856, took her to Madagascar, where she fell ill with malaria; she was thus forced to return early to Vienna, where she died from her illness shortly thereafter. Ida Pfeiffer left to posterity her much-read travelogues, which had already made her a figure of great inspiration for many people. At the urging of Alexander von Humboldt, she had even been inducted into the Berlin Geographical Society as its first female member—and in today’s world, thanks to her determination, she remains known as a figure who exemplified the breakthrough of an emancipated woman world traveller as early as the Biedermeier era.

3. Karoline von Perin, pioneer of the Austrian women’s rights movement (1806–1888)

At the age of 24, this daughter of a noble and wealthy Viennese family wed the Baron von Perin-Gradenstein, a union thoroughly in keeping with her social status. But her husband died young, leaving her to raise their three children on her own. She subsequently entered into a relationship with Alfred Julius Becher, a music critic and staunch advocate of democracy, in 1845. On 21 August 1848, Vienna witnessed its first demonstration by workers, whose already low pay had been cut even further. A subsequent demonstration occasioned a crackdown by armed members of the Imperial National Guard, leaving 18 people dead and nearly 300 wounded. In reaction to this, Karoline von Perin founded the “Viennese Democratic Women’s Association”. During the Vienna Uprising of 1848, she organised a demonstration at the Austrian Parliament, whereupon her association was forcibly dissolved and von Perin and her partner were arrested. Julius Becher was executed by a firing squad, and Karoline von Perin suffered serious maltreatment at the hands of the police. She was then made to leave Vienna and forcibly separated from both her money and her children. It was as an exile in Munich that she wrote her memoires, entitled Ungedruckte Aufzeichnungen [Unprinted Writings], in which she publicly distanced herself from the Vienna revolt. After subsequently receiving permission to return to her home, she founded an employment agency there and withdrew from public life. But her democratic and emancipatory ideas were far ahead of their time. Unfortunately, she would not live to see the seed she had planted sprout and bloom.

4. Fanny von Arnstein, salonnière and society lady (1758–1818)

In Vienna, the literary and musical salon of Franziska “Fanny” von Arnstein was the talk of the town—particularly during the Congress of Vienna. Hers was oriented on the style of the great salons of Berlin and Paris, and it was the meeting-place of an artistic, diplomatic, and political elite. As the city’s best-known salonnière at the time, von Arnstein won people over with her exceptional charm, her hospitality, and her talent for making stimulating and intelligent conversation. Among her guests were personalities including Madame de Staël, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and the Duke of Wellington. In 1776, the Berlin native Fanny moved together with her husband, the Viennese banker Nathan Arnsteiner, to Vienna, where she was confronted with discrimination and contempt due to her being a Jew. Even so, she never made any bones about her religion or her Prussian origins, instead working to improve relations between Christians and Jews. Though she created no literary works of her own, the extremely well-read Fanny von Arnstein was mentioned in numerous reports by her contemporaries, all of whom enthused about her charisma. As a great patron of music, she was a co-founder of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde [Society of Music Lovers], and her salon was a cornerstone of and a model for Viennese salon culture. Together with other well-known salonnières, such as Rahel Varnhagen and Henriette Herz, she made a major contribution to the emancipation and further education of (above all Jewish) women.

Therese Krones

Rahel Varnhagen

Henriette Herz