Workman, Fanny (1859–1925)

views updated

Workman, Fanny (1859–1925)

American explorer and mountain climber who won acclaim in both the U.S. and Europe for the extensive travels she undertook with her husband. Born on January 8, 1859, in Worcester, Massachusetts: died in Cannes, France, on January 22, 1925; daughter of Alexander Hamilton Bullock (1866–1868, Massachusetts governor) and Elvira (Hazard) Bullock; granddaughter of wealthy Connecticut gunpowder manufacturer Augustus George Hazard; educated by tutors, at Miss Graham's finishing school in New York City, and subsequently at schools in Paris and Dresden; married William Hunter Workman, in 1881; children: one daughter, Rachel Workman (b. 1884).

Traveled extensively throughout the world for nearly three decades, exploring mountainous areas, traveling by bicycle, and publishing accounts of travels and exploration which she co-authored with her husband, including Algerian Memories (1895), In the Ice World of the Himalaya (1900), and Two Summers in the Ice Wilds of Eastern Karakorum (1917); set world records for mountain climbing.

On January 8, 1859, Fanny Workman was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the youngest of three children of Alexander Hamilton Bullock and Elvira Hazard Bullock . As the granddaughter of wealthy Connecticut merchant Augustus George Hazard, the premiere manufacturer of gunpowder in the mid-19th century, Fanny laid claim to a distinguished New England heritage, which was enhanced by her father's election to the governor's post in Massachusetts in 1866. Money and political connections provided Workman with a cosmopolitan education at Miss Graham's finishing school in New York City and in Europe.

Returning to Worcester after completing her studies in Paris and Dresden, Fanny met a successful physician named William Hunter Workman, and the two married in June 1881. The Workmans had one child, Rachel , born in 1884, who spent much of her childhood in boarding schools while her parents traveled the world. Fanny and William began their travels together in 1886, visiting Germany, Sweden, and Norway. William's illness-induced retirement from medicine in 1889 hardly meant economic hardship given their independent wealth, so the pair spent the following nine years in Europe, keeping a residence in Germany. Enjoying the high culture of Europe, Fanny loved the German operas of Richard Wagner, often attending performances of them in Bayreuth. However, her interest in mountaineering—sparked by her husband while the two still lived in the United States—became her primary passion as she embarked on a series of mountain climbs of such Alpine peaks as Mont Blanc, Zinal Rothorn, and the Matterhorn.

By the mid-1890s, the Workmans had begun traveling throughout the Mediterranean region, visiting several North African countries (including Egypt), Greece, and Palestine. In Algeria and Spain, they made a great many long trips on bicycle about which they co-authored two books. The Workmans' adventures in bicycle travel remains a remarkable undertaking even by modern standards. Between bicycling in Ceylon (modernday Sri Lanka), Java, Sumatra, India, and what is today Vietnam, they logged over 17,000 miles.

In 1899, Fanny and William, aged 40 and 52 respectively, began their long travels through the Himalayas, first visiting the Karakorum range in the northwest, at that time mostly unmapped and unexplored by those from the West. They thus began the first of seven expeditions to this region, mapping, photographing and recording scientific data as they went along. The Workmans worked together as a great team, equally sharing in the dull and more exciting parts of these expeditions and equally proficient in all tasks which needed to be performed. The pair devoted themselves to scientific studies, mapmaking, and photography during their climbs and published their findings in five volumes between 1900 and 1917. They studied the weather, glaciers, and the effects of altitude on the body, in addition to charting their courses in the harshest conditions. As a result of their work, scientists learned of previously unmapped areas and glaciers, including the watersheds of many rivers. Undertaking many arduous and treacherous climbs, Fanny set an altitude climbing record for women in 1903 by climbing Mt. Koser Gunga to 21,000 feet. She broke her own record three years later by ascending to 23,300 feet on Pinnacle Peak.

Fanny's hobby was unconventional for a woman to say the least, but she was not one to conform to society's expectations of a woman. Workman was a lifelong suffragist, and was photographed reading a paper with the headline "Votes For Women" on her record-setting trek up Pinnacle Peak. William shared his wife's belief regarding the equality of men and women. Despite her convictions, Fanny did dress "appropriately" in a long dress even during the most difficult climbs, although she shortened the length to her boot tops as she aged.

In 1908, another woman climber, Annie Smith Peck , claimed to have broken Fanny's record with a 24,000-foot ascent of the Huascarán peak in the Andes mountains of Peru. However, Workman had Peck's assertion discredited by hiring a team of French engineers to measure the true height of that peak, which came to 21,812 feet. Workman's own record climb was later found to have reached only 22,815 feet, but even that lower number continued to stand as a record until 1934.

This inaccuracy was not the only one to be linked to the Workmans' research in the course of their expeditions. Lacking the training of skilled surveyors and unwilling to take the time needed to painstakingly prepare charts, the Workmans often included inaccurate maps and data in their publications. Criticism of the Workmans extended to their treatment of their Asian guides and porters; the couple's rushed approach to mountain climbing and general disdain for those helping them resulted in strained relationships with their often-enormous crews of 100 or more people. In one instance, 150 members of a climbing party in Karakorum deserted the Workmans, taking much of the food with them.

In spite of these indiscretions, few historians dispute the fact that Fanny Workman's achievements were remarkable for the time in which she lived. She lectured extensively in Europe

and America, earning the distinction of being the first American woman to lecture at the Sorbonne. She was also a member of prominent geographic societies, including the Royal Geographical Society (of which she was a fellow) and the Royal Asiatic Society. She earned the highest medals of ten different geographic societies in Europe.

Following World War I, the Workmans retired to France. Although 12 years the junior of her husband, Fanny preceded him in death, passing away at the age of 66 after enduring a long illness. Ever-mindful of women's issues, she bequeathed some $125,000 to four women's colleges—Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe, Smith, and Wellesley—continuing to support the causes of feminism and women's rights after her death.

The principle works of Fanny Workman, in collaboration with William Workman, include: Algerian Memories (1895), Sketches Awheel in Modern Iberia (1897), Through Town and Jungle: 14,000 Miles Awheel among the Temples and People of the Indian Plain (1904), In the Ice World of the Himalaya (1900), Ice-bound Heights of Mustagh (1908), Peaks and Glaciers of Nun Kun (1909), The Call of the Snowy Hispar (1910), and Two Summers in the Ice Wilds of Eastern Karakorum (1917). In addition, Workman also contributed articles to such prominent publications as Putnam's and Harper's.