And when I wasn't playing tourist . . .

. . . I was sitting in a library. I was ostensibly in Vienna to research this 19th Austrian/Czech/Moravian/Jewish/Catholic woman who was a teacher, translator, poet, actress, fashion enthusiast, women's rights activist who wrote a cycle of poetry about a woman in a polygamous relationship in a certain religion in a certain state in the American west. The intimate details were apparently considered scandalous at the time and was even banned in Austria. What's more, I had only seen a copy of the book form of this set of poems - the first two editions were actually published in scroll form, very exotic. This trip I managed to see the actual scroll at the national library, which was certainly a highlight of my research. I may have even convinced the archivists to take a picture of it for me.

The national library is housed in various parts of the old imperial palace, but the bulk of it is found here:




(Notice that the fiaker horses get to wear rain coats too!)

At the national library I also got copies of some of the things written about that certain religion in German in the 19th century. Then I tried to get some of the other things that this woman wrote, but the women's studies section of the library is having them digitized, which means I couldn't see them. They suggested I try the university library. It only had one of the books I wanted and it would cost 200 Euro to get a library card.

Fortunately, my old professor, Herr Farland, gave me the fortuitous suggestion of checking the city library. If you have occasion to be researching in Vienna, I suggest visiting it just for the friendliness of the staff. It happened to have more works by my author that the national and university library had as well as several letters she had written to various (and now more famous) people. Included in this was an autobiography she had sent to a friend. It's been a couple of years since I worked with 19th century German handwriting (sutterlin) so I knew it was going to take more than a single afternoon to transcribe it. So I asked if I could get a copy or scan of it. When was I leaving? In two days, I said. Well, then they should be able to rush it and get me a copy the next day. I hope I looked grateful in addition to just dumbfounded at their helpful friendliness, so rare among such librarians. I left Vienna with a photocopy of her handwritten autobiography, which I now get to transcribe this summer. Awesome.

The city library is found in the Rathaus:



The library also had an exhibit about women and Vienna. They had my author among their entries and included her address. I checked out her apartment building (which is right in the center of town):



I also discovered that she was buried in the cemetery in Vienna, as her grave was cataloged for a project of Moravian Jews in Vienna. She was in the old Jewish section, which suffered damage on Kristallnacht and from bombs during the war. Despite efforts to clean it up and restore it, the area was quite wild and unkempt compared to the catholic part (not unlike the non-conformist section of the Auckland cemetery). Despite all that, her grave was almost ridiculously easy to find, and the headstone appears to only have suffered minor damage:



There's still much more poking around to be done, but I felt pretty good about what I got accomplished in one week.

Coming Up:
Sebi and I see Melk
Sound of Music meets Singing in the Rain
No foreigners or dogs allowed
"Lafayette, we are here."
"Lafayette, there is no parking."
There is no Carrefour in Europe's carrefour
Mulhouse: Trashy Cafés and Bra Buying
Basel: an hour in the rain
Four museums, two masses, one tower, one Indonesian, one day