Claudia Rapberger

Claudia Rapberger is a doctoral student at the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Vienna. Since 2021, she has been working in the FWF-funded Project Noble Siblings. Wealth Arrangements & Social Configurations. This project was extended for two further years in 2024. She studied History at the University of Vienna and graduated 2014 with a master thesis on violent experiences of illegitimate and foster children in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During her studies Claudia Rapberger has also been actively engaged in museum work. She is still involved in various cultural projects, in addition to her dissertation work.

Research interests: Ego-Documents, Women’s and Gender History, Historical Anthropology, The History of Kinship and Family, The Social History of the Austrian Nobility

Current research project: Letters of Widowed Sisters. Sibling Relationships in the Early Modern Austrian Nobility (working title)
Claudia Rapberger's dissertation project deals with the question of how relationships between noble siblings were expressed in letters. She focuses in particular on the relationships between widowed sisters and their brothers. Previous research on the relationships of noble siblings has tended to focus on structural aspects, characterising them primarily through differentiating categories such as 'gender' or 'birth order'. In contrast, the project adopts a new perspective by considering the relationships as situational and dynamic, and by exploring the positioning of widowed sisters. In order to work out these relationship dynamics, four sister-brother sibling pairs make the center of the investigation. The significance of wealth for family members in different phases of life and situational contexts is under investigation. One focus lies on reconstructing the personal initiatives of individual actors against or in addition to the actions of the family. This makes it possible to visualise the scope for action as well as the opportunities for participation of actors - especially widowed sisters - in the family's handling of property and power.

Publications:

Frühneuzeitliche Briefe aus den Federn adeliger Schwestern. In: Fernetzt. Junges Forschungsnetzwerk Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte (15.11.2023), https://fernetzt.univie.ac.at/20231115-2/.
„Nur nicht aufgeben!“ Ein Pflegekind aus Wiener Neustadt. In: Unser Neustadt. Blätter des Wiener Neustädter Demkmalschutzvereins 1/2022, 2-7.
Zerrissene Kindheit. Das Leben unehelicher Kinder um 1900. In: Anna Jungmayr (Ed.), "... vor Schand und Noth gerettet"?! Findelhaus, Gebäranstalt und die Matriken der Alser Vorstadt. Ausstellungskatalog der gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Bezirksmuseum Josefstadt 6. Mai 2021 bis 30. März 2022 (Wien 2021), 187-195.