Johanna Wäscher

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Johanna Henriette Rosalie Marie Wäscher , b. Range (born November 30, 1858 in Kassel ; † May 18, 1935 ibid) was a highly committed German women's rights activist and in 1919 one of the first six women elected to the 72-member city ​​council of Kassel.

Life

family

Johanna Range was the daughter of a jeweler . She was unable to fulfill her wish to become a teacher or a doctor because of the de facto prohibition of women's studies in Germany that existed until the turn of the century . Instead, she initially worked in her father's business and in 1881 married the businessman Hermann Wäscher, with whom she had four children. Only one daughter survived childhood.

Club activities

Despite considerable family stress, she subsequently became intensively involved as a women's rights activist and in a number of women's associations, both in Kassel and across the country. The social security of female employees, the training of young women, the rights of wives and housewives and the health care of women were her special concerns, which she also addressed through publications in various media and through presentations at congresses.

She was the founder and chairwoman of the “Commercial Association of Female Employees” in Kassel, founded in 1901 and as such also a member of the “Allied Commercial Associations for Female Employees” founded in 1901, which by 1907 had more than 15,000 members. In 1902 she was also one of the co-founders of the "Cassel Housewives Association", which in 1919 abandoned the image of the charitable organization and wanted to be understood as a professional organization. In 1904, Wäscher published a description of the work of 29 Kassel women's associations and their sub-associations, commissioned by the "Verband der Casseler Frauenvereine"; the proceeds from the sale of the 429-page book were used to found a home for single women.

Wäscher was in close contact with Helene Lange and was therefore also active in the "Casseler Women's Education Association" founded by Marie Calm in 1869 and then headed by Auguste Förster from 1887 to 1919, which had set itself the task of promoting the "intellectual and material interests of women promote". The association opened a home economics and trade school for confirmed girls, to whom new professional fields should be opened up through better training. Later, a further education school was founded, which was attached to the school and trained teachers in home economics, handicraft and gymnastics classes. The successor school is today's Elisabeth Knipping School . For a long time, Wäscher was the chairman of the “Hessen-Nassau and Waldeck Women's Association”, to which around three dozen different women's associations in the region belonged. She was also the head of the local group in Kassel in the "German Association for People's Hygiene" , which was founded in April 1899 in Berlin and whose focus was on health education. In 1919 she was a member of the extended federal board of the “ Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine ” founded in 1894 . And she was honorary chairwoman of many women's associations and on the board of the "Association of Cassel Women's Associations".

City councilors

Wäscher was one of the first six women to be elected to the Kassel city council in 1919 after the active and passive right to vote for women had been introduced in Germany on November 12, 1918. The German Democratic Party (DDP) provided three of these female city councilors, Johanna Wäscher, Julie von Kästner and Elisabeth Ganslandt . Minna Bernst and Amalie Wündisch moved into the city parliament for the SPD , Elisabeth Consbruch for the German National People's Party (DNVP) . For one legislative period, Wäscher helped shape Kassel's local politics as a member of parliament.

Publications (selection)

Honor

On the Marbachshöhe in Kassel- Wilhelmshöhe a street is named after her. There you will also find the women Minna Bernst , Elisabeth Consbruch , Julie von Kästner and Amalie Wündisch, who were elected to the city ​​council in 1919 , and streets named after the first Kassel city ​​councilor Johanna Vogt , who was also elected in 1919 .

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Brigitte Kerchner: Profession and Gender: Women's Professional Associations in Germany 1848–1908 (=  Critical Studies in History . Volume 97 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-647-35760-7 , pp. 139 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed July 2, 2020]).
  2. ↑ Marie Wegner (edit.): Merkbuch der Frauenbewegung (ed. By the Federation of German Women's Associations), BG Teubner, Leipzig and Berlin, 1908, p. 94
  3. ^ Johanna Wäscher: The Cassel women's associations 1812–1904. A contribution to the development of women's social work. Ernst Hühn, Kassel, 1904
  4. ↑ Andrea Wahlfeldt & Rita Willerding: Girls' education in women's hands. The Cassel Women's Education Association 1869 - a project of the bourgeois women's movement. Series of publications of the Archives of the German Women's Movement, Volume 3, Kassel, 1987, ISBN 3-926068-03-5
  5. ↑ The "Cassel Women's Education Association" was probably dissolved in 1920 after the school had been handed over to the city.
  6. ↑ Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner (ed.): Yearbook of the Federation of German Women's Associations; Handbook of communal social women's work 1919. BG Teubner, Leipzig & Berlin, 1919, p. 9

Web links

  • 100 year anniversary: ​​“Women of Cassels, you have to vote!” - “Cassel's new men”: This is how the region reacted to women's suffrage. In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine . November 12, 2018 ( hna.de ). (accessed on June 3, 2020)

literature

  • Gilla Dölle, Cornelia Hamm-Mühl, Leonie Wagner: Women's elections: The female city councilors in Kassel 1919–1933 (= series of publications of the archive of the German women's movement ). Archive of the German Women's Movement, Kassel, 1992, ISBN 3-926068-08-6 , pp. 49–53.
  • Jochen Lengemann : Citizens' Representation and City Government in Kassel 1835–2006. (Historical Commission for Hesse) Elwert, Marburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86354-135-4 .
personal data
SURNAME Washer, Johanna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Washer, Johanna Henriette Rosalie Marie; Waescher, Johanna; Range, Johanna (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German women's rights activist, social worker and local politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1935
Place of death kassel