Emma Ihrer (3 January 1857-8 January 1911) was a German politician and trade unionist.
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Emma Ihrer came from a Catholic family of bootmakers. She was married young to Emmanuel Ihrer, an apothecary twenty-two years her senior. In 1881 they moved to Berlin and Emma founded the socialist and feminist Frauen-Hilfsverein für Handarbeiterinnen (loosely, "Aid Society for Women Manual Workers"). She had a seat on the Board. In 1885, Emma Ihrer, Marie Hofmann, Pauline Staegemann and Gertrude Guillaume-Schack the Verein zur Wahrung der Interessen der Arbeiterinnen (loosely, "Society for the Protection of Women Workers' Interests"). The society functioned primarily as a support group in which doctors and lawyers offered their services free of charge. When the police forcibly disbanded the club a year later, it had over a thousand members.
In 1889 she and Clara Zetkin went as delegates to the International Socialist Congress in Paris. Together, they prevented a motion against female employment and ensured that women had equal rights in the trade union movement. By the end of 1890 she was elected as the only woman among six men in the Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften Deutschlands ("General Commission of German Trade Unions").
In 1891 she published the weekly newspaper Die Arbeiterin ("The Woman Worker"). From 1892 it was called Gleichheit ("Equality"). She founded other feminist societies, which were generally socialist in nature, which resulted in almost constant trouble with the police.
Translator's note: These are in German.
Translator's note: These are in German.