Albertine Necker de Saussure

Albertine Necker de Saussure, 1766 to 1841

Albertine Adrienne Necker de Saussure (9 April 1766, in Geneva – 13 April 1841, in Mornex,[1] Vallée du Salève, near Geneva) was a Swiss writer, educationalist, and an early advocate of education for women.

Life

She was the daughter of the Swiss scientist, Horace Bénédict de Saussure, who ensured she received the best education available at that time. Her father taught her himself. She knew English, German, Italian, and Latin. Additionally, she had scientific training; her religious views were broadminded and tolerant; and she supported her father's schooling in her later writings.

Château de Coppet

She married a noted botanist who was the nephew and namesake of Louis XVI's finance minister, Jacques Necker, at age 19.[2] The revolution ended Necker's military career and as a result they returned to Geneva in 1790, where he began teaching as demonstrator in botany at the Academie - he got the job because of his wife's surname.[2] She initially wrote her husbands botany lectures for him, and she educated her own children in a wide range of subjects, including science.[3] They lived with his aunt and uncle in Château de Coppet, where she befriended his cousin, Germaine de Staël.[2]

Her brother, Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure, became a noted chemist and researcher into plant physiology. Additionally, her great uncle Charles Bonnet, like her father, was a famous naturalist.[3]

Albertine Necker de Saussure was a Calvinist. Necker de Saussure did not believe marriage to be the be-all end-all of women's existence, and she did not think that women should be educated solely to please men.[4] She has been compared to Wollstonecraft for believing that single women have to maintain themselves through education.[4]

Science

Horace Bénédict de Saussure

Necker de Saussure's interest in science was encouraged by her father, Horace Bénédict de Saussure. Around the age of 10, she started a diary for recording scientific observations. In time, she became an active experimentalist, and during an attempt to prepare oxygen she burned her face quite badly. When she was younger, she went on geological and botanical expeditions with her father.[3] After her marriage, her scientific activity declined.[5]

Necker de Saussure interacted with several well-known scientists of her day.[5] Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau wrote that he had revived her interest in chemistry during a visit when she stayed with him.[5] She likewise visited several famous French chemists of the period: Antoine Lavoisier, Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy, and Claude Louis Berthollet.[5] In a letter to her father Necker de Saussure described experiments she performed in their laboratories.[5]

Written works

Necker de Saussure's literary work began later in life, after her children were grown.[2] Her principal work, L'Education Progressive or Etude du Cours de la Vie (1828), was a long and influential study on educational theory and the education of women. The work is divided into two parts, originally in three volumes which were published successively.[6] The first two volumes examine general education. Necker de Saussure takes the child from birth and follows it up to fourteen years old. The third volume is devoted to the education of women. Necker de Saussure believed that women's different educational attainments resulted from the fact that women did not receive the same opportunities as men.[4] She wanted women to fulfill their religious, familial and social obligations, but to do so in a self-possessed manner.[7] Her advice shows that she wished to strike a balance between teaching women to be unselfish, and fostering their ability to make independent judgments.[7] Further, she believed that in the past, social attitudes were harmful to women's dignity, and that traces of this remained in women's sense of themselves - she wanted to change this.[7]

She also wrote a biography of her friend and cousin, by marriage, Germaine de Staël for the first collected edition of de Staël's works in 1821. In addition, Necker de Saussure authorized a French translation of Schlegel's Vorlesungen uber dramatische Kunst und Literatur (1809-1811).[8]

Legacy

Her work Education Progressive is acknowledged as an educational classic and it was influential in nineteenth century England.[9] She was active in the Groupe de Coppet, the salon that flourished between the Revolution and the early years of the Restoration.[2] She has been credited with spreading the spirit of the Coppet to a new generation of Genevese aristocrats, including Adolphe Pictet.[2] The portrait of Necker de Saussure sitting next to her knitting basket is considered a most appropriate symbol of a late Enlightenment Genevoise.[6]

De Saussure is a featured figure on Judy Chicago's installation piece The Dinner Party, represented as one of the 999 names on the Heritage Floor.[10]

Notes

  1. ↑ Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Joseph, John E. Saussure (1st ed.). Oxford, U.K: Oxford University Press. pp. 33–38. ISBN 9780199695652.
  3. 1 2 3 Sheffield, Suzanne Le-May (2004). Women and Science Social Impact and Interaction. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. pp. 93–94. ISBN 1851094652.
  4. 1 2 3 Montgomery, edited by Fiona; Collette, Christine (2001). The European women's history reader (1st ed.). London: Routledge. p. 50. ISBN 0415220815.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Rayner-Canham, Marelene Rayner-Canham; Geoffrey (1998). Women in chemistry : their changing roles from alchemical times to the mid-twentieth century. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society. p. 24. ISBN 0841235228.
  6. 1 2 Monter, E. William (1980). "Women in Calvinist Geneva (1550-1800)". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society: 206.
  7. 1 2 3 Montgomery, edited by Fiona; Collette, Christine (2001). The European women's history reader (1st ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 72–74. ISBN 0415220815.
  8. ↑ Rosa, George M (1994). "Byron, Mme de Staël, Schlegel, and the Religious Motif in Armance". Comparative Literature 46 (4): 346–371. doi:10.2307/1771377.
  9. ↑ Hans, Nicholas (1967). "Educational relations of Geneva and England in the eighteenth century". British Journal of Educational Studies 15 (3): 268. doi:10.2307/3119457.
  10. ↑ "Albertine Necker de Saussure". Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Albertine Necker de Saussure. Brooklyn Museum. 2007. Retrieved 3 January 2012.

References

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