The Six Lives of Alexine Tinne: Gender Shifts
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THE SIX LIVES OF ALEXINE TINNE: GENDER SHIFTS IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD, 1835-1915 by MYLYNKA KILGORE CARDONA Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2015 Copyright © by Mylynka Kilgore Cardona 2015 All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements Attempting to complete a PhD is a group effort and I would not have been able to accomplish this dissertation without my support network. Many thanks to the UTA History department and College of Liberal Arts for granting the funding necessary for me to visit overseas archives and for fellowships to allow me to complete my writing. To my committee, I thank you for taking the time and the effort to help me shape my arguments, to discuss with me things that I just needed to verbalize before I could get them on paper, and for putting up with all the errant comma placement. Imre Demhardt, thank you for introducing me to cartography and to Alexine Tinne. I had no idea she would take me so far. Stephanie Cole, thank you for guiding me and helping me shape this work into a cohesive look at the gender shifts taking place in the nineteenth century. Your help was invaluable to me! Thank you to my #accountabilibuddies Karen and Kristen who kept me motivated to write even when I really did not want to and saved my sanity when I thought none was left. Thank you Robin for being a stern and strong supporter and to Jeanne for letting me vent my frustrations and always cheering me on. Thanks to my Mom for her unending support, and last, but definitely not least, to Lupe – without whom none of this would have been possible. April 8, 2015 iii Abstract THE SIX LIVES OF ALEXINE TINNE: GENDER SHIFTS IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD, 1835-1915 Mylynka Kilgore Cardona, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2015 Supervising Professor: Imre J. Demhardt This work is the first to examine the life and legacy of Dutchwoman Alexine Tinne as an example of the cultural and gender shifts taking place in the Atlantic world in the long nineteenth century. Based on primary research in both England and Tinne’s native home of The Netherlands, this work not only updates her biography, but brings her story into the field of transatlantic history. In tracing the life of this one woman one can see how roles for women expanded and how new opportunities for women, especially travel, came about in the Victorian period. Tinne serves as a perfect vehicle to trace the social changes occurring for women in this era because contemporaries saw her as a product of her elite upbringing, a symbol of eighteenth-century elitism, but by the end of the nineteenth iv century Tinne writers remade her as an abolitionist saving slave children across Africa. Through new research into the transatlantic legacy of Tinne, incorporating newspapers, magazine articles, and especially the book The Heroine of the White Nile; Or, What a Woman Did and Dared. A Sketch of the Remarkable Travels and Experiences of Miss Alexandrine Tinne by Professor William Wells (1871) this work establishes the six lives of Alexine Tinne – traveler, tourist, explorer, imperial mother, New Woman, and historical construct. Through an examination of these six lives, all constructed through the lenses of race, class, and gender, one can see the evolution of women’s roles in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This work serves as an entry point into the discussion of writing women’s histories, their biographies, and about rehabilitating images lost or changed over time. It is a work in transatlantic history, women’s and gender studies, exploration and discovery, intercultural transfer, and the importance of memory and perception on the craft of the historian. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................... iii Abstract ..................................................................................................... iv List of Illustrations .................................................................................... viii Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................... 1 Intercultural transfer - an approach to transatlantic/transnational history......................................................... 15 Chapter 2 Traveler ................................................................................... 24 The Van Capellen Family ..................................................................... 26 The Tinne Family ................................................................................. 30 Separate Spheres – an ideology .......................................................... 42 Travel as ritual ..................................................................................... 45 Alexine Tinne as ‘Traveling Lady’ ........................................................ 49 Chapter 3 Tourist (1855-1860) ................................................................ 59 Travelers and Tourists ......................................................................... 61 Women Traveling ................................................................................. 66 Women’s Reasons for Travel ............................................................... 70 Cairo and the First Nile Voyage ........................................................... 75 Visiting the Holy Land .......................................................................... 81 The Second Nile Voyage ..................................................................... 84 A Return to The Hague ........................................................................ 86 vi Chapter 4 Explorer (1860-1869) .............................................................. 92 Alexine Tinne in Africa ......................................................................... 97 Alexine Tinne and the Royal Geographical Society ........................... 113 Hegemonic masculinity ...................................................................... 128 Transatlantic and Frontier Masculinities ............................................. 134 Chapter 5 Imperial Mother 1869-1915 ................................................... 144 Sexual Science and Nineteenth Century True Womanhood .............. 156 Imperial Motherhood .......................................................................... 175 Alexine Tinne, True Woman and Imperial Mother .............................. 185 Chapter 6 New Woman 1869-1915 ....................................................... 191 Western Women in the East .............................................................. 195 The New Women ............................................................................... 203 Tinne’s Narrative as Adventure Story ................................................ 212 Girl’s adventure stories ...................................................................... 218 Tinne as New Woman ........................................................................ 221 Chapter 7 Epilogue – Historical Figure (1869 - ) .................................. 223 Appendix A Timeline of Alexine Tinne’s Life .......................................... 235 References ............................................................................................ 238 Biographical Information ........................................................................ 251 vii List of Illustrations Figure 1-1 The Assassination of Mlle. Tinne by Touaregs – Mlle. Tinne collapsing on the ground. .......................................................................... 3 Figure 2-1 Jean Baptiste van der Hulst, Portrait of Alexine, age 4, 1839, Oil on Canvas .......................................................................................... 25 Figure 2-2 Eugène Devéria, Portrait d’Alexandrine Tinne (1835-1869) ... 41 Figure 2-3 H.A. d’Ainecy (1817-1859) Count van Montpezat, Alexine Tinne, 1849.............................................................................................. 51 Figure 3-1 Alexine Tinne at home, Lange Vorhoort 32, 1860 .................. 70 Figure 3-2 Map of Upper Egypt, 1865 .................................................... 79 Figure 4-1 Map of the Dutch Ladies’ journeys on the Nile River. ........... 102 Figure 4-2 Map of the Tinne Expedition on the Bahr-el-Ghazal. The solid line indicates the majority of their river travels through 1864. The dashed line indicates their return route. Original map shows the ladies’ routes in red. ........................................................................................................ 105 Figure 4-3 Originalkarteder Strasse Zwischen Berber & Sauakin in Nubien nach den Aufnamen und einer Manuskriptkarte Theodor von Heuglin’s 143 Figure 5-1 Wilhelm Gentz, Négres du Soudan ...................................... 147 Figure 5-2 Tinne and her mother leading Lory away from the Arab slave traders to a better life. ............................................................................ 190 viii Figure 6-1 Lady Montagu in Turkish dress by Jean-Étienne Liotard, ca. 1756 ...................................................................................................... 199 Figure 6-2 Alexine Tinne, age 30, self-portrait, North Africa, ca. 1867 .. 202 Figure 6-3 Charles Dana Gibson, Scribner’s for June, 1895 ................. 206 Figure 6-4 S.D. Ehrhart, The New Woman Takes Her Husband