Meta Brevoort

Who was Meta Brevoort?

Marguerite "Meta" Brevoort, an American mountain climber, spent her early years in a Paris convent school. She made a number of important ascents in the Alps in the 1860s and 1870s, but was thwarted in her two greatest alpine ambitions: to be the first woman to climb the Matterhorn, and the first person to climb the Meije in the Dauphiné. Brevoort's role-model and rival was Lucy Walker, who began her considerable mountaineering career at the age of 28, in 1859, and it was Walker who, hearing that Meta planned an expedition to the Matterhorn in 1871, quickly assembled a party that included the famous guide, Melchior Anderegg, and made the summit a few days before Brevoort arrived in Zermatt. In contrast to Walker, who always wore dresses, Brevoort was the first female mountaineer to wear trousers.

Meta Brevoort was the aunt of W. A. B. Coolidge, whom she brought to Europe in 1865, when he was 15 years of age, and introduced to alpine climbing. Coolidge eventually became an outstanding mountaineer, with over 1,700 ascents in the Alps, and the greatest alpine historian of the Victorian age. The two climbed together for over ten seasons, and were joined in many of their adventures by Tschingel, a small dog their guide Christian Almer gave to her nephew. Later, she would proudly refer to their canine companion as the only "Honorary Lady member of the Alpine Club".