Lydia von Wolfring

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Lydia von Wolfring (born 1867 in Warsaw , Russian Empire ; died in the 20th century) was a Polish-Russian social reformer and one of the founders of children's rights protection in Vienna.

Live and act

The beginnings of private child and youth protection institutions in Austria at the end of the 19th century are associated with the names of women. Lydia von Wolfring is considered one of the most important activists of the child protection movement.

Her father was a German ophthalmologist and professor at Warsaw University . Nothing is known about her mother. Lydia von Wolfring was unmarried. In the city of Vienna's register of residents from 1910/11, her occupation is given as “landowner” and “writer”. She called herself "cosmopolitan in the field of philanthropy ". In addition to German and Russian, she spoke Polish, English and Italian, and she also wrote her articles in French. She first made contact with Vienna during a cure in Kaltenleuthaben , where she met Michael Hainisch , the son of Austrian women's rights activist Marianne Hainisch . In his memoirs he describes her as “a girl as beautiful as she is witty”.

Lydia von Wolfring was on the subject of child protection through the book Entartete Mütter. A psycho-juridical treatise (Berlin 1897) by the Italian public prosecutor Lino Ferriani has arrived. She made contact with him, studied the literature on the subject under his guidance and spent eight months traveling to Northern Italy, Switzerland and France, where she visited prisons, asylums, so-called correctional institutions and children's homes and spoke to parents who were due to Child abuse had been convicted. This autodidactic form of study and knowledge acquisition was typical of female biographies at a time when women were not allowed to attend universities. She also dealt with the work of child protection societies in the USA and England, based on whose example she wanted to set up a legal protection office for children in Vienna.

Her decision to become active in Austria for child protection had to do with personal friendships and an experience in Innsbruck, where boys between the ages of ten and twelve were in solitary confinement in a prison to protect them from adult prisoners had to sit in prison because there were no facilities for juveniles who had committed offenses. Reports in the press about two fatal cases of child abuse, which were the first to publicly scandalize child abuse, had a further triggering influence. At that time, abuse of children in the family was considered normal in Austria, as the parents had a so-called right to punish, which was usually exercised by the man as head of the family.

When she came to Vienna on November 7, 1899 with her father and sister Sophie, who were studying medicine, she had already drawn up the statutes and an organizational plan for a child protection association. Your first co-workers and activists for child protection came from among the middle-class Viennese women's movement . She was in close contact with Marianne Hainisch and Auguste Fickert . At the founding event of the Children's Protection and Rescue Society on December 28, 1899 in Vienna, she gave the lecture How do we protect children from abuse and crime? , which was featured in the 1903 yearbook of the American Academy of Political and Social Science . In 1901 she left the Child Protection and Rescue Society and in 1903 founded the Pestalozziverein for the promotion of child protection and youth welfare in Vienna (Allg. Öster. Pestalozzibund) , which radically sided with the children. The association looked after children and young people who had become suspicious, and Lydia von Wolfring worked on researching the causes of child dissociality .

She wrote articles and gave lectures suggesting modern educational concepts and laws to protect children. She also called for the "withdrawal of paternal power". In 1907 she organized the first Austrian child protection congress in Vienna.

Lydia von Wolfring lived in Vienna for only ten years. According to Marianne Hainisch, she left Austria in 1910 “for health reasons”. According to Elisabeth Malleier's research in the Vienna registration documents from 1910/1911, after leaving Vienna, she commuted between Switzerland and Warsaw and stopped over and over again in Vienna. After that, their track is lost.

She was made an honorary member of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children .

Publications

  • How do we protect children from abuse and crime? (Lecture), Commission publisher by Franz Douticke, Vienna 1899 ( digitized )
  • Child abuse , published by Johann N. Vernay, Vienna 1902 ( digitized )
  • The withdrawal of paternal power , published by Johann N. Vernay, Vienna 1902 ( digitized )
  • What is child protection , K. u. K. Hof-Buchdruckerei, Vienna 1905 and 1906
  • Child protection and school , K. u. K. Hof-Buchdruckerei, Vienna 1906
  • The first Austrian child protection congress in Vienna 1907 , In: Yearbook of the Swiss Society for School Health Care (= Annales de la Société Suisse d'Hygiène Scolaire), volume (year): 8/1907, Verlag Zürcher und Furrer, doi: 10.5169 / seals-91025
  • The abuse of children, their causes and the means and their remedies , kk Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1907. Reprint 2010 at Kessinger Publishing , ISBN 978-1-161-10651-0 ( digitized )
  • Young people in need of protection and their welfare , Vienna 1908 ( digitized )

Web links

literature

  • Elisabeth Malleier : "Child Protection" and "Child Rescue". The founding of associations to protect abused children in the 19th and early 20th centuries. , Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2014, ISBN 978-3-7065-5337-7 . About Lydia von Wolfring: Chapter 9: “Light must be forced.” Feminist debates on the subject of child protection , pp. 172–184

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Elisabeth Malleier: The Ottakringer Settlement. On the history of an early international social project , Verband Wiener Volksbildung, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-900799-64-4 , p. 56
  2. ^ Elisabeth Malleier: "Kinderschutz" and "Kinderrettung", p. 172
  3. ^ Elisabeth Malleier: "Child Protection" and "Child Rescue", p. 173
  4. ^ Elisabeth Malleier: "Kinderschutz" and "Kinderrettung", pp. 174/175
  5. ^ Elisabeth Malleier: "Kinderschutz" and "Kinderrettung", p. 174
  6. ↑ Max Winter: Gemarterte Kinder , Arbeiter-Zeitung No. 33 of February 2, 1901, Max Winter text archive
  7. ↑ Doris Griesser: Prepared for a life in poverty , Der Standard, December 20, 2011
  8. ^ Elisabeth Malleier: "Kinderschutz" and "Kinderrettung", p. 174
  9. ^ Elisabeth Malleier: "Child Protection" and "Child Rescue", p. 173
  10. ^ Department of Philanthropy, Charities and Social Problems. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 22, Business Management (Nov., 1903), p. 125 (jstor)
  11. ↑ Elisabeth Malleier: "Child Protection" and "Child Rescue", p. 184
  12. ^ Elisabeth Malleier: "Child Protection" and "Child Rescue", p. 173
  13. ↑ Lydia von Wolfring, biography, from: Der Bund, 5th vol., No. 2, 1910, pp. 6-7 .
personal data
SURNAME Wolfring, Lydia von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wolfring, Lidja von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Child protection activist in Vienna
DATE OF BIRTH 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 20th century