Sophie Adlersparre

Sophie Adlersparre
Born	6 July 1823 Helgerum in Västrum in Kalmar County, Sweden
Died	27 June 1895
Other names	Sophie Leijonhufvud, Esselde
Occupation	publisher, editor and writer
Known for	Women's rights activists. .
Spouse(s)	Axel Adlersparre
Notes
Founded Fredrika-Bremer-förbundet the first real Swedish women's movement organisation (1884).

Carin Sophie Adlersparre née Leijonhufvud (Helgerum in Västrum in Kalmar County, Sweden, 6 July 1823 – 27 June 1895, Ström outside Södertälje), was a Swedish women's rights activist. She was the founder and editor of the first women's magazine in Scandinavia, Tidskrift för hemmet in 1859-85, co-founder of Handarbetets vänner 1874—87, founder of the Fredrika Bremer-förbundet in 1884, and the first female to have been a member of a state comity in Sweden in 1885. She is also known under her pen-name Esselde. She belonged to the pioneers of the 19th-century women's rights movement in Sweden.

Life

Sophie Adlersparre was the daughter of colonel lieutenant Baron Erik Gabriel Knutsson Leijonhufvud and Sofie Emerentia Hoppenstedt. She was educated privately at home, and then two years at a finishing school, the fashionable Bjurströmska flickpensionen (Bjurström's Pension for Girls) in Stockholm.^[1] In 1869, she married the nobleman colonel lieutenant Axel Adlersparre (1812–1879), by whom she became the stepmother of five children.

Sophie Adlersparre lived a sheltered life but was updated in contemporary life and an admirer of Fredrika Bremer. She became engaged in feminist issues through her friendship with Rosalie Roos, who returned to Sweden with an interest in women's rights in 1857 after having spent several years in the United States.^[2] This was also in the middle of the great Hertha Discussion around women's rights, which had been caused by the novel Hertha by Fredrika Bremer, and which resulted in the reform of the abolition of the guardianship over unmarried women (1858–63) and the establishment of the first state school for women, Högre lärarinneseminariet (1859–61).

In 1859, Sophie Adlersparre and Rosalie Roos founded Tidskrift för hemmet, the first women's magazine in Scandinavia. The paper was founded by the financial support of the salon hostess Fredrika Limnell. This became the first regular pioneer spokes organ for women's rights and feminist debate in Sweden, and it became an immediate success.^[3] The purpose of the paper was to inform and engage a continuous debate in women's rights reform and gender roles. Adlersparre shared the post of chief-in-editor until 1868, when Roos retired, after which Adlersparre was given sole responsibility.^[4] As a journalist, she became known under her pen-name and pseudonym: "Esselde". In 1886, Tidskrift för hemmet was terminated and replaced with the new women's magazine Dagny; Adlersparre continued as the Editor-in-chief of Dagny in 1886–1888 and remained in the paper's board until 1894.^[5]

Sophie Adlersparre never focused on Women suffrage, though women were granted municipal suffrage in Sweden in 1862. Her main focus as a women's right activist was the need for women to be professionals and thereby economically independent, and women's right to proper education and access to more professions became a focus of her magazine's as well as her social reform work. In her paper, she stated: "Women need work, and work need the woman". In 1862, she organized evening classes for women to educate them to professionals.^[6] In 1863, she established a secretarial bureau which became a successful employment agency.^[7] In 1864, inspired by the example of her future sister-in-law, Sofia Adlersparre, she managed to have women students accepted as students at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts as the same terms as men. Her sister-in-law, though a successful artist, had not been able to study at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, were females students were allowed to study only on special dispensation. Sophie Adlersparre presented a petition to the Swedish parliament in 1862 that women should be able to study at the Academy on equal terms as men, which lead to a debate in parliament, resulting in a reform in 1864 were the special dispensation demand for female students to the academy was dropped and women were allowed to study on the same terms as men.^[8] In 1866, she was the co-founder of the Stockholms läsesalong (Stockholm Reading Parlor),^[9] which became a free library for women, all to raise the level of women's education and their opportunity to find profession and become educated and self-supporting professionals. Her goal with the free libraries for women was further: "For a continuating self-education and for a bigger and wider outlook upon life".

In 1864-65, she was also one of the pioneer participators in the organization of the Swedish Red Cross alongside Rosalie Roos, General Major Rudebeck, and Dr. Lemchen.^[10] Her marriage in 1869 did not change her activity in any way, and her spouse were described as supportive and sympathetic to her social reform work.^[11]

In 1874, Adlersparre co-founded Handarbetets vänner (Friends of Handicrafts) with Hanna Winge, and served as its chairperson until 1887.^[12] The purpose was to raise the quality and thereby the status of the handicrafts work of women, which were at the time a very important source of income for women in need of self-support.

Her interest in women's education was not only motivated by her wish to see women professionally active, but also her wish for them to be active in public society: "The more we wish and except from women's participation in the reform of society, the more important it is that this work is well prepared".^[13] Many reforms regarding women-s education were introduced during this period: after the reform of the Flickskolekommittén 1866, women were given access to university education (1870–73) and secondary education schools for women were given state support (1874). In 1885-87, Adlersparre was one of the members of a state comity, the Flickskolekommittén 1885 (1885 Girl's School Comitty), assigned by the government to investigate and suggest reforms of the education system of females.^[14] This was the first state comity in Sweden with female members: Sophie Adlersparre and Hilda Caselli.

Sophie Adlersparre has perhaps became most known as the founder of Fredrika-Bremer-förbundet (FBF) in 1884, referred to as the first Swedish Women's Rights Organisation of note and named after Fredrika Bremer. Formally, the sympathizer Hans Hildebrand was made official chair of the FBF because Adlersparre believed that the FBF would be taken more seriously if headed by a male, but she was the de facto chairperson until her death, after which she was succeeded by Agda Montelius.^[15] However, she did feel that it was important that men also be a part of the work for equality, concerning both sexes as it did, and except for women such as Ellen Anckarsvärd (referred to as her successor in the Swedish women's rights movement), Ellen Fries, Gertrud Adelborg and Fredrika Limnell, she welcomed men such as Hans Hildebrand and Gustav Sjöberg.^[16] The purpose of the organization was to "work for a healthy and calm progress in elevating women morally and intellectually as well as socially and economically". Through the FBF she continued her previous work, now channeled through the organization. One of the activities in which she was most interested was the scholarships arranged through the FBF by Mathilda Silow, and the public information bureau of the FBF.^[17]

Also literary interested, she was an admirer of Viktoria Benedictsson and is known to have supported Selma Lagerlöf financially during her work. The last years of her life, she was working with a biography about Fredrika Bremer, but did not have time to complete it.

She was awarded the medal »Illis quorum meruere labores» in 1895.^[18]

References

• Österberg, Carin: Svenska kvinnor; Föregångare Nyskapare (Swedish women; Predecessors, pioneers) Signum, Lund (1990) (Swedish)
• Lilla Focus Uppslagsbok (Little Focus Encyclopedia) Focus Uppslagsböcker AB (1979) (Swedish)
• Sophie Adlersparre
• Victoria Benedictsson, Ernst Ahlgren och Esselde : en brefväxling / utgifen af Sigrid Leijonhufvud. – Stockholm (1910)
• Sigrid Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre 1–2 (1922–23)
• U. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen: Fredrika-Bremer-förbundet 1884–1921 (1997)
• Anna Nordenstam, Begynnelser: Litteraturforskningens pionjärkvinnor 1850–1930 (2001)
• Barbro Hedwall (2011). Susanna Eriksson Lundqvist. red.. Vår rättmätiga plats. Om kvinnornas kamp för rösträtt.. (Our Rightful Place. About women's struggle for suffrage) Förlag Bonnier. ISBN 978-91-7424-119-8 (Swedish)
• K Sophie Adlersparre (f. Leijonhuvud), urn:sbl:5564, Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (art av Sigrid Leijonhufvud.), hämtad 2015-06-16.