Vienna: Maria Theresia

 From the professors, I learned that Maria Theresia made important changes to the Austrian Hungarian Empire. I learned she had 16 children. Her family was pro vaccine. She was also very catholic and not progressive in her religious beliefs. She also reformed education. She made education compulsory for 6 years. I also learned from my professors that she became queen at 25 so things were a little unstable at first, as she was so young. Military and administration was pretty much a mess. She had nothing in the beginning. She was not very enlightened herself. She spent the first 7 years of her reign having babies and fighting wars. After she had proven herself she began to be able to trust her advisors. They helped her make better policies. She ended up being credited with rebuilding the Austrian Hungarian Empire. The baroque remodeling is also thanks to her. I find Maria Theresia to be very admirable in all that she was able to accomplish, especially as a woman.

I think Maria Theresia’s contribution was important to society, her city, and her field as she demonstrated that a woman can be a mother and at the same time be influential in the world and make a difference. Simply, the fact that she influenced and rebuilt the entire Austrian Hungarian Empire in itself is an obvious huge contribution to society. Her country was very much impacted, because of this contribution. In addition, the changes she made within education is also changed society and schools forever within her country. Therefore, I believe her contribution of the inspiration she was and physical impact she had was important for all of these reasons.

In my opinion, Maria Theresia has been commemorated well. She had a school named after her as well as a statue in the square of the multiple large museums in Vienna. The statue of her is the one where she is placed above everyone else who is apart of the statue. We saw this as we walked to the Natural History Museum. Also, I felt that at almost every site we went to in Vienna, we either saw a painting of Maria Theresia or she was at least mentioned. I think her achievements have been commemorated very well in Austria. I think the rest of the world needs to hear about her achievements as well though.