Agnes Gosche

Splendid album of the General German Women's Association with photographs of the main activists (around 1900), Agnes Gosche on the top left

Grave of Agnes Gosche and her sister in the town church

Agnes Gosche (born August 26, 1857 in Berlin , † March 14, 1928 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German teacher , doctor of art historian , and pioneer of professional women's education. She earned her doctorate in art history in Zurich in 1898 , making her one of the first female art historians in Germany.

Live and act

Agnes Gosche was the second of three daughters of the orientalist and literary scholar Richard Gosche and his wife Klara, nee. Dieterici, born in Berlin. Due to the father's appointment to the University of Halle-Wittenberg , the family moved to Halle in 1863. In 1875 Agnes Gosche passed the teacher examination in Erfurt. After being employed as an educator in Switzerland in the summer of 1876, she then worked as a teacher at the city's middle school. She also gave private lessons in the French language and art and literary history.

In addition to her work at the Seydlitz Lyceum in Halle from 1885, she studied art history, French and German in Paris, Halle and Leipzig from 1881 to 1898. In 1898 she became a major in art history in Zurich with her dissertation “Simone Martini. A contribution to the history of Sienese painting in the 14th century ”. In Halle she then devoted herself primarily to the advanced training courses for girls who had left school. Together with her sister Liesbeth she ran a boarding school for girls at Karlstrasse 9 (today Franz-Andres-Strasse).

In 1900 she founded in Halle (Saale) to Halle woman Education Association , a branch of the German Association of Female Citizens, its director for 28 years as chairman. From 1904 to 1911 she was director of the women's lyceum in Leipzig, founded by Henriette Goldschmidt . It was the first educational institution in Germany to combine training as a teacher on a Froebel basis with general education after the secondary girls' school. The Gosche sisters took their girls' pension with them to Leipzig. During this time she founded the first Volkskindergarten in Halle.

She then took over the management of the newly founded municipal women's school in Halle and ran it until she retired in 1923. For the first time, women were able to acquire professional qualifications as kindergarten teachers, daycare teachers and youth leaders. In 1912, at her suggestion, the first reading room for children was founded.

In 1919 she ran for the German Democratic Party (DDP) in the Weimar National Assembly . On the occasion of her 70th birthday on August 26, 1927, she was appointed honorary chairman of the Halle Women's Association. In the Dölau district , Agnes-Gosche-Straße was named after her.

Her grave is on Halle's Stadtgottesacker (inner field III).

Fonts (selection)

Outline of art history for higher education institutions. Publishing house of the orphanage, Halle 1910.

literature

Lisa Albrecht-Dimitrowa: Dr. phil. Agnes Gosche, 1857-1928. In: Courage eV (Hrsg.): Women's life - women's everyday life - yesterday and today. Halleinnen (= Biographical Sketches I, Issue 1). Halle 1995, pp. 35-41.
Claudia Jandt: Gosche, Agnes, Dr. phil. In: Eva Labouvie (Ed.): Women in Saxony-Anhalt , Vol. 2: A biographical-bibliographical lexicon from the 19th century to 1945 . Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2019, ISBN 978-3-412-51145-6 , pp. 182-185.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Gosche, Agnes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German teacher
DATE OF BIRTH	August 26, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin
DATE OF DEATH	March 14, 1928
Place of death	Halle (Saale)