Travelling bodies, texts and reputations

The gendered life and afterlife of Kate Marsden and her mission to Siberian lepers in the 1890s

Bibliographic Data

ID15086641
AuthorsElizabeth Baigent (Wycliffe College, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume18
Issue1
Pages34-56
Publication date2014-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies in Travel Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1364-5145 • E-ISSN: 1755-7550
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13645145.2014.886445
OpenAlexW1989312652
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited38

Nurse Kate Marsden (1859–1931) travelled to Siberia in the 1890s to bring relief to lepers there, her voyage being described in popular accounts in Russia, Britain, the USA and Germany. Her life as a traveller was also recounted in articles in the popular press in several languages and an autobiography. She achieved recognition in many countries, being received at court in Britain and Russia, and being one of the first women fellows of the Royal Geographical Society. Her later life, however, was marked by scandal with accusations of inappropriate hetero- and homosexual activity, insurance fraud, deception and profiteering. This essay gives a brief account of her life and shows how from the 1890s her body, texts and reputation travelled uncertainly and vulnerably. Rather than revealing the imagined geographies of the places she visited, her travelling body, texts and reputations create imagined biographies which fluctuate over time and space.Keywords: Kate Marsdengendered reputationsimagined biographiesimagined geographieslesbianismRussiaSiberiawomen travellers Notes1. See also Baigent forthcoming for a discussion of “Christian truth”.2. Thomas (Citation1959) remains a classic exposition. For consideration with respect to women travellers, see Birkett (Citation1989, Citation2004), Baigent (Citation2008) and for women geographers Maddrell (Citation2009). Baigent, Brewer, and Larminie (Citation2005) consider women in the public record generally.3. Unless separately noted the biographical account below is from Marsden (Citation1892a), Johnson (Citation1895) and Baigent (Citation2008), the last of which covers Marsden's later years. See also Middleton (Citation1973, Citation1982, 2004).4. See the discussion below of the controversies surrounding her.5. This section relies on Chapman (Citation2000), Hapgood (Citation1893), Millinship (Citation1994, Citation1998a, 1998b, 1999), Gould (Citation2005) and Weimann (Citation1981, 442–446).6. I am grateful to Tony Gould for sight of this report.7. I am grateful to Lisa Holland, Archivist of the Wagner Archive, Staten Island, New York for supplying these letters.8. Notably Fanny Bullock Workman, who had herself photographed in the Karakoram with a placard reading “Votes for women”. See Middleton (Citation1982), figure facing page 82.9. The early Anglophone editions are by the Record Press, London, later ones by Simpkins and Marshall, London.10. 12th ed. 1895.11. The quotation is from Fedor Tiutchev's poem of 1859 “These Poor Villages”, from which Ely's book's title is also taken.12. Marie zu Erbach-Schönberg (1852–1923) was an aristocrat whom Marsden doubtless enjoyed meeting.13. See Clifford (Citation1997) for the slipperiness of objects apparently safely stored as cultural markers in the museum.14. The British Empire Leprosy Relief Association (later Lepra) received various objects including the embroidered book case refused by the RGS, but they are now lost. Irene Allen, email, June 29, 2007.15. I am grateful to Brian Harrison for the reference to Photographic News.16. These appear in many editions of her travel book; reproduction and discussion in Brewer Citation1890–1891, 284–285, of Marsden in the dress of women in the Holy Land. See Foster and Mills (Citation2002) for discussion of western women travellers adopting eastern dress.17. After her death these went to the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association (letter, E. Norris to A. Hinks, April 16, 1932, RGS archive, CB 10) but are now untraceable (Irene Allen, Lepra archivist, personal communication, email of June 29, 2007).18. There are captions to photographs taken out of the field.19. Although it is perhaps not fortuitous that her German translator visited Bulgaria, her brother being the country's first prince, who like Marsden was in Bulgaria during the Russo–Turkish war (Erbach-Schönberg Citation1916).20. I am grateful to the Culin Archival Collection, Brooklyn Museum, New York for sight of Marsden's 1893 Chicago pamphlet.21. See also other works cited in Chapman (Citation2000).22. This section relies on Millinship (Citation1994, Citation1998a, 1998b, 1999), Chapman (Citation2000) and Baigent (Citation2008).23. A. F. Francis to the Prefect of St Petersburg, 1894, Russian State Archives, cited in Millinship “Heroine of Russia Cast Out into the Cold,” The Times, August 15, 1994.24. Gould (Citation2005) by contrast is a more critical account within the history of medicine and uses new archival material.25. Maddrell (Citation2009) considers the recovery of women's histories and their uncertain incorporation into the geographical canon. For women's entry into other canons, see Baigent, Brewer, and Larminie (Citation2005).26. For the problem of gendered reputations and historiographies more generally, see Maddrell (Citation2009), Rose (Citation1993), Domosh (Citation1991, Citation1997) and Foster and Mills (Citation2002).27. “The people of Vilyuysk think that Kate Marsden did a great thing for the region ... It is similar to what Lenin did for the Soviet people. That is why they named the street after her” (Aston Citation2008)

Afterlife · Art · Art history · Biography · Deception · Exposition (narrative · Literature · Memoir · Political science · Politics · Public life · Reputation · Sociology · Classics · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Historical Geography and Geographical Thought · History · Law · Travel Writing and Literature

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