Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer (née Schlözer), (18 August 1770 - 12 July 1825), was a talented German scholar and the first woman to receive a doctor of philosophy degree in Germany.
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Dorothea was born in Göttingen the daughter of professor August Ludwig Schlozer a prominent historian and theorist on matters of education. Schlozer believed that women's intelligence was equal to that of men. To settle a dispute with another professor on the effectiveness of Johann Bernard Basedow's method of education they agreed to educate their first born children by different methods to see how the results differed.[1] Both children turned out to be girls. Dorothea Schlözer was given a non Basedow regime , she had the best private tutors, and a rigorous curriculum made it possible for her to read at aged four.[1] She was also educated in several languages from an early age, and by the age of 16 she had mastered 9 languages; French, English, Dutch , Swedish, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Hebrew and Greek.[1] She studied mathematics under professor Kasner who was amazed at her abilities. She later studied botany , zoology, optics, religion, mining and mineralogy .[2] In addition, she was given instruction in areas then thought to be typically female such as playing the piano, singing, sewing, knitting and cooking.[1]
Women were not permitted to study at Göttingen University at that time ,and Schlözer followed an extensive private examination by a faculty committee in the subjects of modern languages, mathematics, architecture, logic and metaphysics, classics, geography, and literature. She obtained her degree in the late 1780s.[2]
Dorothea Schlozer differed from most learned women of the time who were thought of as neurotic and unfashionable. Schlozer was much more presentable. She knew how to sew and knit and understood how to run a household well.[2]
She married a wealthy established merchant, Senator Mattheus Rodde in Luebeck in 1792 by whom she had three children. Henceforth, she wrote under the name of Rodde-Schlözer, the first use of the double surname in German. Their home became a centre for social and intellectual life attracting visitors from all over Germany and France.[1]
Later in life she studied art in Paris and achieved a high standard. She was commissioned to paint a portrait of Kaiser Franz. She entered into a relationship with the French writer Charles Villers (1765–1815), in 1794 and lived semi publicly in a ménage à trois with her husband and Villers.[3]
In 1810 her husband's business was declared bankrupt and he went into premature senility. This blow was followed by the death of Villers and two of her children. Weak with disease herself she moved to Avignon, France, seeking a mider climate and hoping to save the life of her only surviving daughter. She died there of pneumonia in 1825 aged fiftyfive.[3]