By Stephanie Zach
Special to NKyTribune
For most of us, winter is the time to sit in a blanket by the fireplace, sip a hot drink, and pine for summer. Some, however, embrace these three months of the year, journeying far and north where the winter never ends. Such was the case with Kate Scudder (1849-1926), a voracious 19th-century world traveler.
Kate Scudder, a well-known community figure of her day, was a founder of the Baker-Hunt Art and Cultural Center on Greenup Street in Covington, Kentucky. She was also an avid tourist, and left florid journals of her travels, which are digitally available on the Kenton County Public Library’s website.
Scudder gave detailed information about her journeys, telling her readers everything from the size of the country, to its history, down to anecdotes of her experiences at the landmarks she visited. They were, in essence, Lonely Planet Guides by an educated 19th-century woman. And like many of her time period, she had some strong yet fascinating opinions.
Most popular of her travel diaries were those from her 1882 and 1886 expeditions through Europe. Lesser known was her journal from her trip to Norway, which might be dismissed for the typical Grand Tour of Europe, but she described in favorable comparison:
“Small wonder that we were in love with Norway before we put foot on her soil, and our admiration increased with every step; when one has read Norwegian history, they appreciate the delights of entering Christiania in the 19th century, when the enclosure of her fortress is turned into pleasure grounds . . . ” (Norway Travel Journal, p. 7).
The history she was referring to was mostly Viking history, about which she wrote somewhat profusely, to set a foundation for Norway’s later progress. She described Viking life as “Treachery, bloodshed, and misery . . . through a long line of Harolds, Erics, Haakons, Magnus’, Sigurds, and Olafs” (Norway, pg. 15). The story took a turn for the better, in her opinion, after St. Olaf’s Christianization of Norway—in her opinion, Norway was more cultured and civilized because of it.
Not all of Norway needed to be tamed for Miss Scudder. Her descriptions of nature were beautiful, even poetic: “The Southern and Western coasts are cut into a deep fringe; in fact as you look at the map, the country looks like some great monster, lying on his side, with hundreds of arms stretching out into the water, grasping after the innumerable islands that belt the coast . . . The Sea often seems to lose itself in these dark, narrow lanes of water between perpendicular walls of rock that are sometimes 3& 4000 ft. high. The sides are water worn, jagged, wild, and roaring torrents from the plateaus and snow-capped peaks above, dash over these almost naked cliffs.” (Norway, p. 8).
Miss Scudder gave several speeches and papers about her travels to the Covington Culture Club, established in 1888 as an ongoing lecture series on varying topics. One of her more popular presentations was her treatise on Russia. In contrast to her fondness for Norway, Russia didn’t seem to be one of her favorite places to visit. She had a very strong opinion about the people there, especially those emigrating from Siberia to the United States, which seemed to be a relevant issue at the time she presented the paper:
“The common classes are hardy, capable of great endurance, good natured, patient; Their years of serfdom making them slavish and resigned, always ready to follow, seldom ready to lead. Their trying climate and merciless under officers of State leave very little to soften their natures, added to these occasional famine, and the only wonder is [how] they are ever cheerful and happy as to their stupidity. How could it be otherwise?” (Culture Club Presentation on Russia, p. 11)
These reflections, as well as others throughout the presentation, were a product of their time. It is important to note that Scudder herself, as well as her fellow Culture Club attendees, would have borne such an attitude of noblesse oblige. To be able to travel in the nineteenth century, especially as a woman, required wealth. This, of course, resulted in bias on the part of the traveler, and later the listener, given that the flow of information was delivered from the perspective of an upper-class lady, whose experiences were, in many ways, tailored to her.
She described the view of a Russian mountain road with “Artificial fountains [that] refresh the traveler, and improve the vegetation. Nothing could be wilder or more beautiful” (Russia p. 5). Of course, there’s nothing like taking in pristine artificial fountains from the window of a carriage.
To be fair to Miss Scudder, she continued to describe “dashing rivers, lost in a mist below snowclad mountains, green glaciers, narrow canyons, a hundred times wilder than Switzerland,” saying that it makes “a picture worth stamping on one’s memory.”
Kate Scudder’s travel diaries are perfect for curling up in a chair and journeying to the Arctic, hundreds of miles, hundreds of years, freezing seas and frosted peaks away. All of them are scanned as PDFs on the Kenton County Library Website, and located in the Special Collections section under the Genealogy tab:
http://www.kentonlibrary.org/genealogy/community-history/baker-hunt-collection/baker-hunt-scudder
http://www.kentonlibrary.org/kcpl/genealogy/BakerHunt/KateScudderJournals/russia_cultureclub.pdf
Stephanie Zach is Library Associate in the Local History and Genealogy Department at the Kenton County Public Library.
For more blogs from the Local History and Genealogy Department at the Kenton County Public Library visit: http://www.kentonlibrary.org/blog/kcpl