Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage

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Statements by important women's rights activists guide through the exhibition; here: Gertrud Bäumer , Marie Juchacz and Tony Sender

Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage was a special exhibition in the Frankfurt Historical Museum . It ran from August 29, 2018 to January 20, 2019. The occasion was the 100th anniversary of the introduction of women's suffrage in Germany in November 1918. The exhibition is part of the nationwide anniversary campaign "100 years of women's suffrage" of the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth and the European Academy for Women in Politics and Business Berlin . It was the first exhibition in Germany to focus on the topic of women's suffrage in the anniversary year.

Subject and structure of the exhibition

18 activists for women's rights
Women in the Weimar National Assembly 1919 ( SPD and USPD )

The special exhibition covers around 900 square meters and provides an overview of the development of women's suffrage and the women 's suffrage movement in Germany in an international context. The approximately 450 exhibits include photographs, posters, political campaign material and everyday objects. Sound recordings such as speeches and songs can also be heard in the exhibition, including a recording of a speech by Gertrud Bäumer . The exhibition organizers had an actress repeat the first speech by a parliamentarian ( Marie Juchacz ) in the Reichstag in 1919.

The exhibits come from a large number of German and international archives and collections, many of them from the archive of the German women's movement in Kassel .

The exhibition is structured chronologically and divided into five sections called "galleries".

Women's life in the empire

The starting point for the exhibition is the situation of women in the German Empire . Using everyday objects and clothing, she shows the roots of the women's movement in associations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Fight for women's suffrage

The exhibition presents the diverse organizations and campaigns for women's rights as well as the activists and their international networks within the First Women's Movement . In addition to demands on education, work and career choice, health and sexual morality, political participation and thus women's suffrage became a central goal of large parts of the women's movement. Part of the exhibition is dedicated to the political centers in Germany, including Frankfurt as an important center of the German women's suffrage movement.

Warrior women and revolutionaries

With the beginning of the First World War , the lives of women in Germany changed due to the absence of many men. This upheaval also marked the turning point in the German and European women's movement, which split into supporters of the war and a pacifist wing that continued to rely on international networking of women's organizations and a common peace policy. The November Revolution brought new opportunities for women to get involved politically and to claim their rights in the newly created political system.

Women to choose!

The exhibition shows documents on the mobilization of women for the first elections to the Weimar National Assembly and the first election campaign aimed at women as voters. Another part of the exhibition shows the everyday life of the first women parliamentarians in Germany and their work on establishing women's rights in the constitution and legislation.

Awakening - repression - hope

An outlook at the end of the exhibition takes a look at the situation of women during the Nazi era and in the early Federal Republic as well as in the GDR and makes references to current debates about women's rights. In an interactive part, knowledge about milestones in women's rights is conveyed via quiz questions, e.g. B. since when are German women allowed to get their driving license without the permission of their husbands or since when the German Football Association allows “women's teams”.

Organization and scientific support

The Frankfurt Historical Museum

The exhibition was conceived and realized by the curators Dorothee Linnemann, Katja Koblitz and Jenny Jung. The exhibition was prepared over four years. The project costs were 664,000 euros. The Markgraph studio was responsible for the design . The patron is Federal Minister Franziska Giffey .

The scientific advisory board consisted of Michael Dreyer ( University of Jena ), Frauke Geyken , Julia Paulus ( LWL Institute for Westphalian Regional History ), Hedwig Richter ( Hamburg Institute for Social Research ), Angelika Schaser ( University of Hamburg ), Anja Schüler ( Heidelberg Center for American Studies ), Ursula Wischermann ( Goethe University Frankfurt ) and Kerstin Wolff ( Archive of the German Women's Movement ).

reception

The opening of the exhibition at the end of August 2018 was reported nationwide. It was also the occasion to discuss the anniversary linked to current issues of political participation by women.

literature

The catalog was published to accompany the exhibition:

  • Dorothee Linnemann (Ed.): Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage. (= Writings of the Historisches Museum Frankfurt . Volume 36.) Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt 2018, ISBN 978-3-95542-306-3 .

A conference volume was published to accompany the exhibition:

Web links

Commons : ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage  - collection of images, videos and audio files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Kathrin Wesolowski: Exhibition 100 years of women's suffrage: “Human rights have no gender” . In: Hessenschau . August 30, 2018 ( hessenschau.de [accessed October 1, 2018]).
  2. ^ A b c Theresa Höpfl: Exhibition in Frankfurt. 100 years of women's choice . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . August 31, 2018 ( fr.de [accessed October 1, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Margit Schlesinger-Stoll: 100 Years of “Ladies' Choice” - Exhibition for the anniversary of women's suffrage. In: Watch Salon. August 28, 2018, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Maria Wetzel: 100 years of women's suffrage: A step towards more equality . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . August 30, 2018, p. 2 ( stuttgarter-zeitung.de [accessed October 1, 2018]).
  5. ↑ Martina Schumacher: Women rule the Historical Museum - special exhibition "Ladies choice!" In: Journal Frankfurt . August 30, 2018 ( journal-frankfurt.de [accessed October 1, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Maja Ellmenreich: Exhibition on 100 Years of Women's Suffrage - When Women Fought for Political Participation. Interview with Dorothee Linnemann . In: Deutschlandfunk . August 30, 2018 ( deutschlandfunk.de [accessed October 1, 2018]).
  7. ^ Heike Mund: Radical Emancipation: 100 Years of Women's Suffrage in Germany | DW | 09/01/2018. In: Deutsche Welle. September 1, 2018, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Petra Kammann: Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage in the Frankfurt Historical Museum. In: feuilletonfrankfurt.de. September 2, 2018, accessed October 1, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Ladies choice! - One hundred years of women's suffrage . In: frizz-frankfurt . July 25, 2018 ( frizz-frankfurt.de [accessed October 1, 2018]).