Twelve Months in Sweden with Fredrika Bremer
Posted
16th December 2024
in blog, blogsNnews, Literature, People
Twelve Months in Sweden with Fredrika Bremer, A collection of letters and observations by Margaret Howitt has been donated to the House by Irene Wiltshire along with the Howitt’s Journal Vol 3 described in an earlier blog. These two volumes were published in 1866 by Jackson, Walford and Hodder
Both volumes, which are in very good condition for their age, have a plate inside from Forbes Library, Northampton Mass(achusetts). This is a large public library which was founded in 1894. The newly hired director, Charles Ammi Cutter, apparently went to Europe to assemble a collection in time for the library’s opening in October 1894. I wonder if these 2 volumes were perhaps part of that original collection? The volumes contain an accession stamp with the date 9 November 1894, so it seems very likely.
Who wrote this?
Was it Mary Howitt or her daughter Margaret? Just a little clarification is necessary. Mary Howitt used the name Margaret in her later life. She was baptized a Roman Catholic in 1882, six years before her death, and took the name Margaret. She spent her later years in Italy, living with her daughter, also a Margaret, in the Tyrol. Mary Howitt learned Swedish and translated much of Bremer’s work into English.
However as this work was first published in 1866 I assume it was put together by her daughter Margaret 1839-1930, as her mother was still calling herself Mary at this time. The Howitt family became friendly with Fredrika Bremer after Mary began translating her work for English speaking audiences.
Who was Fredrika Bremer?
The introduction to the first volume says ‘This book was written by a dear friend shortly after her death. Margaret describes Fredrika as “a representative woman known and honoured in every civilised country of the globe for her literary works…yet took still higher rank as a reformer and philanthropist. She was especially the helper of her own sex …and was the means of effecting a real emancipation of her countrywomen”.
Fredrika Bremer 1801 – 1865 was an extremely active and influential woman who corresponded with Elizabeth Gaskell and visited Plymouth Grove.
She was a Finnish-born Swedish writer and reformer from a well-to-do family and who was strictly and highly educated. As she grew up she found the passivity of women’s lives intolerable. She spent some time nursing, but eventually settled on writing to provide herself with income. She was an activist and pacifist who railed against the unequal status of unmarried women. She travelled independently in Europe, including England and extensively in the United States as well as Spanish Cuba.
Today a prominent feminist association in Sweden is the Fredrika Bremer Association. Founded in 1884, it is the oldest women’s rights organization in Sweden and is named in memory of the writer, whose novel Hertha played a significant role in advancing women’s rights in Sweden
Did Elizabeth Gaskell meet Fredrika Bremer?
Fredrika spent six weeks in Britain in 1851 visiting Liverpool and Manchester as well as Birmingham, and London. She met Charles Kingsley, and George Eliot as well as Elizabeth Gaskell. Her series of articles about England for the Aftonbladet largely concerned her favourable impression of the Great Exhibition, which she visited four times. They were later gathered for English publication as Sketches of a Tour of England in 1851.
In this she describes a visit to Elizabeth Gaskell and refers to Mary Barton saying ‘when I saw the lovely country seat of this amiable lady, bright with the sunshine of her countenance, animated with the pleasant sound of her cheerful voice, I could not repress my astonishment that she should have drawn so black a picture of life ‘.
Fredrika admired Mary Barton very much. Writing at length about it in a long letter to Elizabeth which we display digitally at the House, she says ‘Your novels have opened many an eye, many a mind in Sweden as well as in England to things every day before their eyes and that yet hitherto has been overlooked, or not looked earnestly into…‘
In the same letter she mentions Elizabeth’s daughters ‘the fine young girls that I saw at your house – I remember so well and would fain know about if they are doing well, living, loving, doing good-happy! I shall hope and wait. And remain your admiring and sincere friend.‘
Following her return to Sweden in November 1851, Bremer attempted to engage its middle- and upper-class ladies in social work similar to that she had observed in America and England. She co-founded the Stockholm Women’s Society for Children’s Care to assist orphans left by a cholera outbreak in Stockholm, as well as the Women’s Society for the Improvement of Prisoners to provide moral guidance and rehabilitation of female inmates in 1854.
So what can we read of her in our books?
The biographical account of 12 months in the life of Fredrika Bremer in Sweden provides a blend of daily observations and broader context about Bremer’s contributions and experiences. It is based on Margaret Howitt’s own observations and letters. There are factual descriptions of life in Sweden in chapters such as Out and About in Stockholm and a Visit to Uppsala. There are chapters on social customs such as Christmas Doings and Summer Flittings.
There is also a detailed and personal perspective on Bremer’s contributions to literature and social reform and a moving account of the end of Bremer’s life. The volumes are delightfully illustrated with unattributed line drawings. There is also a small photograph of Fredrika inside the first volume (see above).
These two volumes provide a rare opportunity to read a detailed account of a woman’s life in another country and culture in the mid 19th Century. The fact that she was a pioneering, socially concerned and fiercely independent woman, as well as being an exact contemporary of Elizabeth Gaskell makes it an all the more welcome addition to our book collection.
We have a digitised letter written to Elizabeth Gaskell from Fredrika Bremer available to read in the Morning Room and she also features in the material on display in the Bronte Room. Do take a look when you next visit.
Blog written by Jane Mathieson, with thanks to Diane Duffy for some pointers
