Susanna Gossweiler

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Sign on Susanna-Gossweiler-Platz

Susanna Gossweiler (born December 8, 1740 in Zurich ; † in August 1793 there ) was the first teacher at the Zurich Girls' School and a pioneer in the education of girls in Zurich.

Life

Susanna Gossweiler was the sixth of a total of seventeen children of silk gentleman Hans Konrad Gossweiler and his wife Ursula, nee. Hess. Of the eleven siblings, only seven survived.

In August 1758 the father had to declare the bankruptcy of his business. Susanna had to earn her own living when she was eighteen and began to give private lessons. Sixteen years later, Susanna Gossweiler was elected the first teacher of the Zurich Daughter Institute in 1774, at the same time she became its director and successor to the school's founder Leonhard Usteri (1741–1789). Usteri had opened the school in 1774 in the canons' building of the Great Minster . He was looking for a teacher of good repute , who was " of good morals ", had a " patient, gentle sense of humor " and a " sound mind " and had both " a legible hand " and "was able to do arithmetic ". The school was later also called "Gossweiler School".

Susanna Gossweiler recognized how important it was for girls to be encouraged to become independent and better positioned in society, and she advocated a cross-class education as a housewife, wife and mother. In her position as teacher and headmistress, which she held until her death in 1793, she achieved a great reputation. Her teaching activities made a decisive contribution to the establishment of similar schools in other Swiss cities.

Appreciation

In Markus Lutz's collection of necrologists “Memorable Swiss from the Eighteenth Century” for “Friends of Patriotic Culture and History” from 1812, four women are listed alongside nine hundred men. One of them is Susanna Gossweiler, who became a recognized Swiss personality 20 years after her death. The author writes about them:

"Early on she showed excellent skill and talents for the profession to which she subsequently devoted herself, namely a fine observation spirit, a love of truth and correct knowledge, a penchant for useful and noble work, along with a praiseworthy striving to do more and more things worth knowing perfect. Reading good scriptures and dealing with educated people were of great use to her for this purpose and promoted her education [...] She lived with all her soul for the institute and its acceptance and improvement, proved to be a religious, virtuous and dutiful teacher for a full 19 years and died in August 1793. Her grateful students' feelings about their loss poured out in a song of mourning and praise on the day of her funeral, August 23rd. "

- Markus Lutz : Necrology of memorable Swiss from the eighteenth century

On June 16, 2004, the city council of Zurich approved a motion by the street naming commission and named the previously unnamed small square above the Rehgässchen behind the house “zum Rech” in District 1 “Susanna-Gossweiler-Platz”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Claudia Crotti: Leonhard Usteri. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . February 19, 2013 , accessed February 8, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Zurich City Archives (ed.): Daughter's School of the City of Zurich 1875 - 1976. Zurich City Archives VH c.98. (1st series) . Zurich February 5, 2018 ( stadt-zuerich.ch [PDF; accessed February 8, 2020]).
  3. ^ Sara Aebi: Upbringing for Girls and Mission: the Daughter Pension of the Moravian Brethren in Montmirail in the 18th century (=  contributions to historical educational research . Volume 48 ). Böhlau, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-412-50358-1 , p. 82 f . ( Excerpt in the Google book search).
  4. ^ A b Matthias Dürst: The Susanna-Gossweiler-Platz. In: Gang dur Alt-Züri. Retrieved February 8, 2020 .
  5. ^ Markus Lutz: Nekrologiger memorable Swiss from the eighteenth century . Heinrich Remigius Sauerländer, Aarau 1812, p. 180 ( full text in Google Book Search).
personal data
SURNAME Gossweiler, Susanna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first teacher and head of the Zurich daughter school
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1740
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH August 1793
Place of death Zurich