Helene von Forster

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Helene von Forster's calling card with signature, 1880
Chairman of the first German women's congress in Berlin in early March 1912. Back row from left: Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner , Martha Voss-Zietz, Alice Bensheimer , Anna Pappritz . Front row from left: Helene von Forster, Gertrud Bäumer , Alice Salomon .

Helene von Forster , née Schmidmer (born August 27, 1859 in Nuremberg , † November 16, 1923 there ) was a German women's rights activist and writer . She is considered the most important representative of the moderate middle-class women's movement in Nuremberg.

Life

Her father, Kommerzienrat Christian Schmidmer, was the director of a wire factory in Nuremberg. Her mother, née Nanette Lotz, was the daughter of a ducal-Coburg state councilor. As the daughter of a manufacturer with three younger siblings, she received the typical training as a “senior daughter” at the Portschen Institute , and then in a boarding school in Lausanne . She married the Nuremberg ophthalmologist Sigmund von Forster on September 20, 1882. The marriage had a daughter in 1894.

She began writing lyric poetry and casual poetry and edited volumes of poetry, the proceeds of which she donated to charity. She wrote a little comedy for a celebration of the Pegnese Flower Order ; further plays were made in 1902 ( Das Burgweiblein ), 1907 ( in the house of Martin Behaims , premiered on the occasion of the 16th German Geographers' Day ) and 1913 ( History of an Urn , festival on the occasion of the 44th Assembly of the Anthropological Society ).

In 1893 she joined the women's movement and, together with Bertha Kipfmüller , founded the Nuremberg section of the Frauenwohl Association on November 16, of which she became the first chairwoman. The association, which will soon have 2,000 members, organized evening courses (handicraft, housework, languages), founded and operated the New Nuremberg Women's Labor School and, from 1898, in St. Johannis, next to the newly built city hospital, the first maternity leave for workers in Bavaria, which was mainly working women Possibility of giving birth to their children under medical supervision. A charity festival organized by the association raised 32,000 marks in 1904 for the association's facilities.

In 1894 she founded the Nuremberg branch of the General German Women's Association , which she also chaired for the first time. In the same year she became a board member of the Federation of German Women's Associations and from 1902 she was the second chairwoman of the Federation. Numerous other associations were founded by 1909.

Since 1908 she was a member of the Progressive People's Party , which later became part of the German Democratic Party . In 1919 she was elected to the Nuremberg City Council for the DDP. There she worked with Agnes Gerlach on welfare, girls' education , art and science.

In Nuremberg, the Am Röthenbacher Landgraben elementary school has been named after her since 2001.

Publications (selection)

  • Moment shots . JL Stich, Nuremberg 1892
  • In the open air . Nisters Kunstanstalt, Nuremberg 1893 (poems)
  • The woman, the man's helper . Nuremberg 1893
  • Nuremberg after watercolors. W. Ritter with verses by Helene v. Ranger. Ritter u. Klöden, 1896
  • The castle woman . 1902 (festival)
  • Atmospheric pictures from Nuremberg . Nister publishing house, Nuremberg 1906
  • In the house of Martin Behaim . 1907 (game)
  • Family and personality culture . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Schieber: History of Nuremberg. Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-406-56465-8 , p. 115.
  2. ↑ a b c Forster, Mrs. Helene von . In: Sophie Pataky (Hrsg.): Lexicon of German women of the pen . Volume 1. Verlag Carl Pataky, Berlin 1898, p. 221 f. ( Digitized version ).
  3. ↑ a b Forster, Helene von . In: Franz Brümmer: Lexicon of German poets and prose writers from the beginning of the 19th century to the present . Volume 2. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1913, p. 241.
  4. ↑ a b Nürnberger Nachrichten: In the footsteps of Helene von Forster  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , August 17, 2009. Retrieved May 6, 2010.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.nn-online.de  
  5. ^ Martin Schieber: History of Nuremberg. Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-406-56465-8 , p. 114.
personal data
SURNAME Forster, Helene von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German suffragette and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1923
Place of death Nuremberg