Our autumn online seminar for the DSN Women and Alcohol Cluster will feature a talk by Louisa Niesen, European University Institute, Florence, Italy on 6 November 2025 at 12.00 midday (UK time) on Zoom (link available on request). This paper will explore alcohol consumption among Central European female tourists between 1880–1914. Drawing from ego-documents and visual representations of German-speaking female tourists, I demonstrate that alcohol consumption, often associated with male-dominated public spheres, was a widespread and normalised activity among women in semi-public and public spaces, such as trains, wine taverns, and restaurants.
Presenting several case studies, my paper investigates the purposes, scope, and conditions of these women's drinking habits. For instance, women tourists’ accounts frequently highlight drinking for pleasure and even intoxication, revealing attitudes toward alcohol that contradict the ideal of female abstinence promoted by bourgeois norms.
I will also show how travel itself emerged as a critical factor in reshaping drinking behaviours. Drawing from practice theory, I argue that the dislocation of everyday routines during travel facilitated shifts in women’s attitudes, legitimising alcohol consumption in unfamiliar settings. Providing a comprehensive survey of the motivations, patterns, and social acceptance surrounding alcohol consumption among female travellers, my findings suggest that drinking was a regular and widely accepted aspect of middle-class women tourists’ lives, challenging prevailing assumptions of female sobriety and temperance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Louisa Niesen is a PhD researcher in history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Her dissertation examines leisure travel by train, ship, and car, exploring how material conditions and intersecting characteristics shaped Central European women's tourist practices and experiences between 1880 and 1914. Her research interests include gender history, the history of consumption and material culture, and the history of everyday life.
Please e-mail us on dsnwomencluster@gmail.com for the link to attend.
