"The Best Place on Earth for Women": The American Experience of Aasta Hansteen

Abstract

10 "The Best Place on Earth for Women": The American Experience of Aasta Hansteen by Janet E. Rasmussen The enduring popular image of Aasta Hansteen has been of an impassioned, eccentric, umbrella-wielding reformer. Gunnar Heiberg's play Tante Ulrikke (1884) captured this side of her. Ibsen's dynamic heroine Lona Hessel, who insists upon unveiling social hypocrisy in Pillars of Society (1877), is also frequently said to have been modeled on Aasta Hansteen. The daughter of Christopher Hansteen, a distinguished early professor at the University of Oslo, Aasta Hansteen (18241908 ) was well known in the intellectual and upper-class circles in Norway's captial, for her unconventional behavior set her apart from her contemporaries. Aasta Hansteen had the distinction of being Christiania's first female portrait painter, the first Norwegian woman to deliver public lectures, the first woman to publish in the nynorsk language, and, along with Camilla Collett, a pioneer in the Norwegian women's movement. Hers was a rich and fascinating life, but one which until recently has remained largely unexplored.1 Aasta Hansteen lived in the United States for nine years, between 1880 and 1889. She spent six and a half years in the Boston area and two and a half years in the Midwest, primarily Chicago. Thus her American experience was an urban one. The reasons she chose Boston as her initial residence are obscure; one can only speculate that the rich cultural environ245 246 Janet E. Rasmussen ment and the established women's movement made it an attractive destination. She could count on a small annual income from Norway, which she supplemented by painting portraits on commission; her life-style was of necessity extremely modest. This was, nevertheless, an important and eventful time for her. A study of her experiences in, and responses to, the American scene opens up new perspectives on Aasta Hansteen as a person, artist, and reformer. In addition , it enriches our understanding of the two environments in which she lived. As she later expressed it, Aasta Hansteen decided to emigrate because the ground was burning beneath her feet. Hostility, it seemed, surrounded her in Norway. Hansteen's defiance of convention and vocal opposition to traditional theological views about women generated a steady barrage of criticism and scorn. With good reason she felt isolated, unappreciated , and misunderstood. Her decision was also prompted by the knowledge that in the New World the struggle for women's rights was well under way. She eagerly anticipated the opportunity to observe the inspiring suffrage leaders about whom she had read. Thus a combination of "push" and "pull" factors motivated Aasta Hansteen to go abroad at the age of fifty-five. Together with her foster daughter Theodora Nielsen, she sailed from Christiania on April 9, 1880. 2 In the euphoria of departure she wrote in her pocket calendar, "My misery is over." In her first published communication from the United States, she confirmed her happy decision: "Since I left Christiania, my principal emotion has been an indescribable feeling of liberation."3 On Wednesday, May 5, Aasta Hansteen arrived in Boston . She at once began to seek out progressive individuals and organizations. May was an excellent month for her orientation to begin, for it was the time when many groups, including the suffrage associations, held their "anniversary meetings." There was thus opportunity to sample America's flourishing club and organizational life before the summer hiatus. As the weeks passed, Aasta Hansteen met or observed Aasta Hansteen in America 247 such leading reformers as Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Mary Safford, Mary Livermore, and Wendeil Phillips. Her sole paid occupation during the first months consisted of writing five reports for the Christiania newspaper Verdens Gang , an assignment apparently agreed upon before she left Norway. These articles made it clear that she was keeping up with the Boston press, in particular The Woman's Journal (referred to as "Kvindernes Ugeblad"), and that she was very favorably impressed by the liberal Boston intellectuals with whom she came in contact. October brought a flurry of activity surrounding the visit of Bjornstjerne Bjornson. It also marked Aasta Hansteen 's transition from newcomer to working artist. Her initial project was a portrait of...