Tag Archives: postwar Europe

When we think of the great travelers and explorers of the past, we usually think of men—Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Stanley and Livingstone—but there are many women who feel the lure of travel too. Even in fairy tales when it was usually the prince who went wandering through the world seeking his fortune and/or a beautiful princess, there were also girls who went on journeys.

Do you remember the story of Snow White and Rose Red, who lived deep in the forest with their mother and

were kind to a bear that came asking for shelter one snowy night? These two sisters roamed through the woods and kept meeting an unpleasant little dwarf who got into terrible scrapes by having his beard seized by a fish in the river, or caught in a log the dwarf was trying to split. Each time they met, the girls saved the dwarf from harm, but he only screamed and harassed them for their trouble. Finally one day they came upon the dwarf looking over his collection of precious jewels in a quiet glade in the forest. The dwarf was angry that they had found him and started screaming at them but just then the bear came out of the woods and killed the wicked dwarf. Sure enough, as usually happens in fairy tales, the bear turned into a handsome prince ready to marry Snow White and his equally handsome brother married Rose Red. The moral being, I suppose, that sisters who travel together may come upon great treasure and happiness to share.

Real life sisters, of course, were rarely so lucky. Still, travel sometimes brought new adventure, professional growth, and even a loving husband. Louisa May Alcott and her sister May, traveled to Europe together after Louisa had found success with the publication of Little Women. Her sister May wanted to be an artist, but facilities for studying art were limited in the Boston of the 1860s, so the two set off for Europe. They traveled through England, France and Italy and for the first time had a chance to study the great European art they had only read about. When Louisa went back to America to help their ailing mother, May lingered in Europe to continue painting.

There she met a young Swiss businessman named Ernest Nieriker who encouraged her art. The two fell in love and married, although their happiness was brief. May died in childbirth and never had time to become the great artist she dreamed of being. Perhaps she never would have reached that goal, but at least she had a chance at it, and she found love and happiness through the generosity and companionship of her sister Louisa who made her travel possible.

Traveling to Europe became much easier for American women as the years went by. When I graduated from college, my sister and I went on a summer-long student tour of Europe. Today I posted on my website the journal I kept during that trip in 1951. If you go to the top of this page and click on the link to “Europe Summer 1951” you will find that journal, including the black-and-white photos of a postwar Europe much less crowded and much less prosperous than it is today.