Volksgarten

Volksgarten means “People’s Garden.” Emperor Franz I ordered it laid out beside Hofburg Palace on the site of bastions blown up by French troops. The garden opened on May first, eighteen twenty-three. It was the first garden in Austria that the imperial court had designated for the public in advance. In its first decades, that public consisted mainly of nobles and prosperous townspeople: they strolled here, drank coffee, and listened to orchestras.

On August twenty-eighth, eighteen forty-eight, between one hundred fifty and four hundred women gathered in the salon of Café Corti. Shortly before that, the government had cut the wages of women digging on public construction sites, and their demonstration had been dispersed; eighteen people were killed. Women, meanwhile, were not admitted to political associations with voting rights. Those gathered decided to create one of their own.

They elected Karoline von Perin-Gradenstein as president, a baron’s widow and mother of three who sought political equality and education for women. She came from a wealthy noble family but lived unmarried with Alfred Julius Becher, the editor of a revolutionary newspaper. Her relatives had already turned away from her; involvement in politics put both her property and her children at risk.

Men were not allowed into the meeting. They crowded around the nearly floor-length windows, then forced their way inside and smashed the glass. The women had to relocate the meeting, but that same day they founded the Vienna Democratic Women's Association—the first political association of women in Austria. Its charter allowed men to help but barred them from voting; married participants were granted no advantages over unmarried ones.

Over the next two months, the association issued leaflets, held meetings, and collected one thousand signatures for a petition to the Reichstag—the parliament of the time. The deputies rejected the petition. After the revolution’s defeat, the association was banned and Karoline was arrested. Becher was shot, her property was confiscated, and custody of her children was taken away. She was allowed to return to Vienna only after renouncing political activity. She opened an employment office, later earned money through photography, and never again entered politics publicly.

A semicircular pavilion stands on the site of the salon: after suffering severe damage during the war, it was rebuilt, and it is now the Volksgarten Club. In the spring of two thousand twenty-five, a small memorial marker bearing the inscription “Women’s Association in the Volksgarten” was installed in the garden.