Louise Otto-Peters

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Louise Otto-Peters
Louise Otto-Peters

Louise Otto-Peters (born 26 March 1819, Meissen, Germany - died 13 March 1895, Leipzig, Germany) was a German writer, feminist, poet, journalist, and women's rights movement activist. She often wrote under the pseudonym of Otto Stern. [1] She is widely acknowledged as the founder of the organized German women's movement.[1]

Contents

[edit] Life

Louise Otto-Peters was the daughter of a successful lawyer. She was well educated by private tutors. Both her parents died when she was young and she was forced to consider how she would earn a living. She took up writing in the 1840s producing novels, short stories, poetry, and political articles for journals.[1] She witnessed the effects of the industrial revolution taking place in Germany and supported campaigns for political and social reform. She was a friend of Robert Blum, who became a deputy to the Frankfurt Parliament following the revolution of 1848. [2]

Otto-Peters was inspired by the revolutionary ideas sweeping across Europe in 1848. In that year she founded the newspaper, Frauen-Zeitung (Women's News). [3] Its masthead bore the paper's motto: Dem Reich der Freiheit werb ich Bürgerinnen! ( "I am recruiting female citizens for the realm of freedom!"). It inspired the formation of women's circles across Germany. Frauen-Zeitung was suppressed in 1852 and Otto-Peters retired from political life for a while. [3]

In 1866, she co-founded, with Auguste Schmidt and others, the "Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein" (General Union of German Women) in Leipzig. The goals of the Union were stated in Otto-Peters' pamphlet Das Recht der Frauen auf Erwerb (Women's Right to Work). [3]

The Union had 11,000 members by 1876. Otto-Peters served as joint president, with Schmidt, for the rest of her life. They also jointly edited the house journal, Neue Bahnen (New Paths). [3]

[edit] Works

  • "Schloss und Fabrik" (Castle and Factory) 1846
  • "Speech of a German Girl" 1848
  • "Frauenleben der Gegenwart" (The Right of Women to Participate) 1866
  • "Frauenleben im Deutschen Reich" (Women's Rights in the German Reich) 1876

[edit] Bibliography

  • Adler, Hans. "On a Feminist Controversy: Louise Otto vs. Louise Aston," in Joeres, Ruth-Ellen B. and M.J. Maynes, eds., German Women in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: A Social and Literary History. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986: 193-214.
  • Joeres, Ruth-Ellen Boetcher. Die Anfänge der deutschen Frauenbewegung: Louise Otto-Peters. Frankfurt a/M: Fischer, 1983.
  • Joeres, Ruth-Ellen Boetcher. "Louise Otto and Her Journals: A Chapter in Nineteenth-Century German Feminism," Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, IV (1979): 100-29.
  • Koepcke, Cordula. Louise Otto-Peters. Die rote Demokratin. Freiburg: Herder, 1981.
  • Diethe, Carol. The life and work of Germany's founding feminist Louise Otto-Peters Lewiston : Edwin Mellen Press, 2002 (in English)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c James Chastain , Ohio University
  2. ^ McMillan, University of Strathclyde
  3. ^ a b c d Brooklyn Museum database

[edit] References

  1. Louise Otto-Peters Biography at Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. James Chastain , Ohio University. Accessed January 2008
  2. Louise Otto (Peters) (1819-1895) Entry at Biographies: Women's Suffrage by Professor James F. McMillan, University of Strathclyde. Accessed January 2008
  3. Brooklyn Museum DinnerParty Database of notable women. Accessed January 2008


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