The Real Ice Queens: Women Who Conquered the Cold Wearing Corsets
▻http://www.messynessychic.com/2018/02/27/the-real-ice-queens-women-who-the-conquered-the-cold-wearing-corsets
Can’t bear the winter cold anymore? Consider for a moment, this photograph of a woman climbing a glacier in a billowing Victorian skirt. As it turns out, there were more than a few females who braved the ice in petticoats and traversed the world’s harshest environments at a time when wearing trousers was still a serious scandal for a lady. Decades before women even had the right to vote, we were climbing to the top of the highest mountain in Europe and exploring the arctic. So if like me, you’re feeling a little sorry for yourself with your runny nose and thermal layers, it’s time to toughen up as we meet history’s true ice queens…
Let’s start with Josephine Diebitsch Peary, aka, the “First Lady of the Arctic”. This 19th century explorer traveled farther North over the ice fields than any woman recorded in history before. And I say « ‘recorded in history’ because, let’s not forget the countless Inuit women who would have also travelled into the Arctic unrecorded, saving the fate of numerous expeditions thanks to their expertise in tailoring and food preparation. Male explorers often failed to mention these women in their expedition diaries, their names obscured by the prejudices of the day.Josephine however, was certainly the first white woman to establish a profile as a female Arctic explorer, a feat made even more surprising by her upbringing as a wealthy, white-gloved society lady. But then, she fell in love with Robert Edwin Peary, an American Navy officer who had discovered a passion for exploring the mysteries of the Arctic and would become the first white man to do so. Within a few years of their marriage, Josephine found herself swapping white gloves and champagne glasses for seal gloves and a rifle. She accompanied her husband on six of his Arctic expeditions; on the second of which, she was eight months pregnant.
