Albertine Necker de Saussure

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Albertine Necker de Saussure

Albertine Adrienne Necker de Saussure (born April 9, 1766 in Geneva , † April 13, 1841 in Mornex , Savoy ) was a Swiss writer, educator and early advocate of education for women.

Life

Albertine Necker de Saussure's father Horace Bénédict de Saussure

She was the daughter of the Geneva scientist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure , who made sure that she received the best possible education for her time. Her father taught her herself. She was trained in various exact sciences and spoke English, German, Italian and Latin.

Château de Coppet

In 1785 she married a well-known botanist, Jacques Necker (1757-1825), the nephew of Louis XVI Finance Minister Jacques Necker . The revolution ended Necker's military career and as a result, the two came to Geneva in 1790, where he taught botany at the Académie de Genève - he got the job thanks to his wife's family name. She first wrote botany lectures for him and taught her own children on a wide range of subjects, including the exact sciences. She lived with his aunt and uncle at the Château de Coppet , where she befriended his cousin Germaine de Staël .

Her religious views were open and tolerant: Albertine Necker de Saussure was a Calvinist . She did not believe that marriage was the only goal of female existence, nor that women should be raised solely to please men. She has been compared to Mary Wollstonecraft for her belief that single women could earn a living through education.

Her brother Nicolas Théodore de Saussure became a well-known chemist and researcher in plant physiology . In addition, her great uncle Charles Bonnet was a famous naturalist.

science

Necker de Saussure's interest in science was supported by her father. Around the age of ten she began to keep a diary for recording scientific observations. Over time, she became an active experimenter, and when trying to make oxygen, she burned her face. When she was younger, she went on geological and botanical research trips with her father. After her marriage, her scientific work declined.

Necker de Saussure exchanged ideas with several well-known scientists of your time. Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau wrote that he renewed her interest in chemistry during a visit. She visited several famous French chemists of the time: Antoine Lavoisier , Antoine François comte de Fourcroy , and Claude Louis Berthollet . In a letter to her father Necker de Saussure, she described experiments that she carried out in their laboratories.

Works

Necker de Saussure's literary activity began later after your children grew up. Her major work, L'Education Progressive ou Étude du Cours de la Vie (1828), was a long and influential study of the educational theory and education of women. The work was published in three consecutive volumes. The first two volumes deal with general education. Necker de Saussure looks at the child from birth and follows him up to the age of fourteen. The third part is devoted to the training of women. Necker de Saussure believed that women's different levels of education resulted from the fact that women were not given the same opportunities as men. She wanted women to fulfill their religious, family and social obligations, but in a self-determined manner. She also believed that in the past certain social attitudes were harmful to the dignity of women and that traces of them remained in the self-confidence of women - she wanted to change this.

The cousin Germaine de Staël

She also wrote a biography of her friend and cousin Germaine de Staël - published in de Staël's first compilation in 1821. In addition, Necker de Saussure translated Schlegel's lectures on dramatic art and literature (1809–1811) into French.

effect

Her publication Education Progressive is recognized as an educational classic and was influential in England in the nineteenth century. She was active in the Groupe de Coppet , the salon that flourished between the Revolution and the first years of the Restoration. She is credited with spreading the spirit of Coppet in a new generation of Geneva aristocrats, including Adolphe Pictet . The portrait of Necker de Saussure, next to her the knitted basket, is a symbol of a late Geneva educator.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ René Sigrist: Jacques Necker. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . September 4, 2007 , accessed December 16, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f John E. Joseph: Saussure , 1st ed. Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, ISBN 978-0-19-969565-2 , pp. 33-38.
  3. ^ A b c Suzanne Le-May Sheffield: Women and Science Social Impact and Interaction. . ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2004, ISBN 1-85109-465-2 , pp. 93-94.
  4. ↑ a b c edited by Fiona Montgomery, Collette, Christine: The European women's history reader , 1st ed .. Edition, Routledge, London 2001, ISBN 0-415-22081-5 , p. 50.
  5. ↑ a b c d e Marelene Rayner-Canham; Geoffrey Rayner-Canham: Women in chemistry: their changing roles from alchemical times to the mid-twentieth century . American Chemical Society, Washington, DC 1998, ISBN 0-8412-3522-8 , p. 24.
  6. ^ A b E. William Monter: Women in Calvinist Geneva (1550-1800) . In: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society . 1980, p. 206.
  7. ↑ a b Edited by Fiona Montgomery, Collette, Christine: The European women's history reader , 1st ed. Edition, Routledge, London 2001, ISBN 0-415-22081-5 , pp. 72-74.
  8. ↑ George M Rosa: Byron, Mme de Staël, Schlegel, and the Religious Motif in Armance . In: Comparative Literature . 46, No. 4, 1994, pp. 346-371. doi : 10.2307 / 1771377 .
  9. ^ Nicholas Hans: Educational relations of Geneva and England in the eighteenth century . In: British Journal of Educational Studies . 15, No. 3, 1967, p. 268. doi : 10.2307 / 3119457 .
personal data
SURNAME Necker de Saussure, Albertine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Necker de Saussure, Albertine Adrienne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss writer, educator, and an early advocate of education for women
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1841
Place of death Mornex , Savoy