WOMEN
Yella Hertzka
1873 – 1948 Austria
Suffragette, publisher, gardener and founder of the first Higher Gardening School for girls in Austria. From 1921 onwards, she was the President of the Austrian section of the Women‘s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). In 1921, she organized the 3rd International Congress of the Women’s League in Vienna.
Anita Augspurg
1857 – 1943 Germany
She is Germany’s first woman lawyer and activist of the radical bourgeoise movement. She fought for equal rights which means in a feminist perspective to give a priority to voting rights and political participation with the aim to stop war and violence. Together with Heymann, Augspurg requested the expulsion of Hitler in 1923. She died in exile in Switzerland.
⇒ Kurzbiografie im Digitalen Deutschen Frauenarchiv (DDF)
Dr. Aletta Jacobs
1854 – 1929 Holland
First woman medical student in Holland. As women’s activist, she organized the 1st Women’s Peace Congress in the Hague in 1915 and served as Vice-President of WILPF for many years. She tried successfully to introduce women suffrage in Holland as a stipulation for peace and went to the Zurich Congress in 1919.
Mien van Wulfften Palthe-Broese van Groenou
1875 – 1960 Holland
Dutch feminist and pacifist; activist for women’s right to vote. Engaged with the first WILPF Congress in the Hague 1915. Went in 1919 to Zurich to discuss how to avoid future wars.
Rosa Genoni
1867 – 1954 Italy
Highly innovative designer, staunch defender of the rights of garment workers and advocate of the rights of women in particular. As WW1 broke out, she became an active participant in the Int. Women’s Peace movement, participated in the congresses in the Hague and Zurich, supported refugees.
Władysława Habicht
1867 – 1964 Poland
Worked in a post office and struggled for women’s rights. Co-founder of the women’s housing cooperative (1904). After restoring of the Polish state in 1918, she was candidate of the women’s committee for parliamentary election.
Clara Campoamor Rodríguez
1888 – 1972 Spain
Lawyer and feminist, internationalist, pacifist politician, was one of the first women MP’s in Spain, 1931-33, Director of Public Assistance in the Government, 1933-1934. Spanish women owe her their right to vote. In 1931, struggled alone for women‘s suffrage and after a hard debate in the Spanish Parliament she won it. Spain was the first Latin country to obtain it.
Rosa Manus
1881 – 1942 Netherlands
Dutch Feminist and Peace Activist. Vice-President of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (ISWA) and co-founder of the Women’s League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Leading officer of the Women’s Disarmament Committee of the Liaison Committe of the Women’s International organisations that started in 1931. Founding president of The International Women’s Archives in Amsterdam.
She was murdered by the Nazis in Bernburg
THORA DAUGAARD
1874 – 1951 Denmark
Trained translator and editor, active suffragist in Danish Women Suffrage Societies Federation (DKV). Established a Danish Section of WILPF (KILFF) and, in 1916, the Danish women’s Peace chain, which successfully recruited women of the working class. In 1919, she became the editor of a new women’s magazine.
COR RAMOND-HIRSCHMANN
1871-1957, Holland
Co-organizer of the International Congress of Women in 1915 in The Hague, elected president of the Dutch branch of the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (ICWPP). She was on the delegation to heads of state which presented resolutions to Scandinavia and Russia. She formed the group speaking to peaceful nations. In 1919 she travelled to the ICWPP meeting in Zurich, became international secretary of the WILPF in 1921 and served as secretary or adjoint secretary to 1936. She hosted WILPF Emergency conference for “new peace” 1922 in the Hague.
HEDWIG KÄMPFER
1889 – 1947 Germany
She was an activist before and during the revolution in Munich 1918/1919. She worked as a clerk in the labour union and was co-founder of Munichs USPD, the pacifist party that split up with the Socialist Party SPD. When all revolutionary men were in jail in 1918 she (and other women) held an important part in the party, also later on. She organized political education for socialist women. 1920 – 1924 she was member of the city council of Munich. During the „Drittes Reich“ she lived in France, was detained for five years in a camp and died in Paris
IDA VASSALINI
1891-1953 Italy
Italian Poet and Translator. Daughter of Bartolomeo V. and Itala Abati. Became early interested in classical and oriental philology, in philosophy and poetry. Studies at Padova and Milano. Worked as teacher in Milano. Refused from joining the fascist association and almost lost her position. After the war living in Verona. She spent ten years in translating the Gītā, in last years worked on the Dhammapada. Active in cultural, pacifist and international organizations.
VIRGINIA PIATTI TANGO
1869-1958 Italy
Virginia Tango-Piatti (AKA Agar) born Florence, Italy September 21, 1867 (d. 1958). Feminist poet and writer. Pacifist, anti-militarist, and anti-fascist; lifelong proponent of nonviolence. Opposed Libya War, 1912; spoke openly against World War I, 1915. Published memoirs as volunteer nurse, 1917. Co-founded Italian WILPF. Exiled, 1933-39; arrested and sent to concentration camp, 1943.
Ada Salter
1866 – 1942
Ada Salter was an English social reformer, environmentalist, pacifist and a Quaker elder. She has been described as the pioneer of ethical socialism with her radical and revolutionary ideas apparent from an early age
Annabelle Huth-Jackson
1870-1944, United Kingdom
During the First World War Annabelle Huth Jackson, called Tiny became a vociferous pacifist, a member of the Independent Labour Party. She attended a mass rally in the Albert Hall to celebrate the Russian Revolution in 1917. Unlike most early Women’s International League (WIL) women whose activism developed from the suffrage movement, Tiny described herself as ”passionately anti-suffrage”...
EMMELINE PETHICK-LAWRENCE
1867-1954
With the outbreak of war in 1914 Emmeline became increasingly involved with the search for peace. She was one of only three women from Britain to make their way to the Women’ Peace Congress in the Hague in 1915 and subsequently became honorary treasurer of the Women’s International League of Great Britain which came out of the Congress....
Ethel Williams
1863-1948, United Kingdom
Ethel Williams was a doctor and the first woman to found a general medical practice in Newcastle upon Tyne. A suffragist, pacifist, educationalist and social welfare campaigner, she was a founding member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
GERTRUDE EATON
1864-1939, United Kingdom
Though much less well known than other female political activists of the early twentieth century, Gertrude Eaton made significant contributions not only to the campaign for women’s vote, but also to the issue of penal reform. It was thanks to her lobbying efforts that penal reform was put on the agenda of the League of Nations, providing the groundwork for the United Nations’ standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners, adopted in 1955.
HELENA MARIA LUCY SWANWICK
1864–1939, United Kingdom
Helena Swanwick, suffragist, pacifist, author, and delegate to the League of Nations Assembly from 1924, is an example of a woman operating confidently on the international stage and enjoying significant political influence at a time when women in many nations did not have the right to vote or stand for elections.
THEODORA MARY WILSON
1865 – 1947 United Kingdom
...Theodora was part of this network of Quakers taking action locally and internationally in response to the deteriorating conditions and extreme suffering caused by the war. The Quakers had been focused since the start of the war on the need for a peace to be negotiated that would not lead to further war...
ANNOT ROBINSON
1874-1925, United Kingdom
Organiser for the Women’s Labour League (WLL), in the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), outspoken against the war on a number of public platforms, active in the development of the local branches of Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF).
FRIEDA PERLEN
187o-1933, Germany
Born into a Jewish family in Ludwigsburg, she belonged before the First World War to the active women in the Women's suffragette ssociation and from the beginning to the IFFF/WILPF. She lost her son during the First World War, which reinforced her pacifist attitude and action against fascism.
HELENE STÖCKER
1869-1943, Germany
CONSTANZE HALLGARTEN
1881-1969, Germany
Constanze Hallgarten’s strong commitment for peace was heavily critisized in her conservative bourgeois environment ( Thomas Mann and others) and she was persecuted by extreme right (media). She ended up on the black list of Hitler and had to flee from Germany. She returned in 1955 from the US to Munich and re-founded the local group of WILPF and devoted her life to peace activities.
FRANCES HARDCASTLE
1866 – 1941, United Kingdom
Frances’ mathematical achievements are more known than her work on suffrage and pacifism. She was Honorary Secretary of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) under Millicent Fawcett and stated her disagreement with militant methods taken by suffragettes.
ELLEN WILKINSON
1891 – 1947, United Kingdom
Against the backdrop of WW1, Ellen became disillusioned with the ILP after they changed their anti-militarist stance in the wake of war. Ellen believed that the war was ‘an unjust and imperialist war’ and proclaimed her pacifist stance by joining the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
LIDIA SHISMANOVA
1866-1937, Ukraine (Bulgaria)
Shishmanova was a member of the Association of Women with Higher Education, was a founder of the Club of the Bulgarian writers in 1930, and the League of English speakers, Society for Peace and Freedom where she served as the vice-president of the Bulgarian section of the International League for Peace and Freedom. She was also a member of the Bulgarian Women's Union and the Society of Esperanto in Bulgaria...
KATHLEEN ELIZABETH ROYDS (Innes)
1883-1967
Kathleen was influenced by suffragist ideas and a strong believer in equal rights for women. Women’s rights as well as her views on democracy, internationalism and pacificism seem to have developed through her engagement with wide-ranging literature and the study of history. However, it was her experience at the start of the First World War that changed the course of her life, and she became more involved in politics and peace activism.
CARME KARR ALFONSETTI
1865- 1943; Spain
Journalist, writer and feminist involved in the defense of peace since the beginning of the 20th century. She was a pioneer for peace: the only woman to sign the manifesto of Spanish intellectuals against World War I, and also the first woman who gave a lecture at the Barcelona Ateneo.
MARGALIDA COMAS CAMPS
1892- 1972, Spain
Doctor in Biology, she was one among the first women professors in Spain and an example of the links of solidarity established among women of WILPF. While researching in London, 1920-21, she attended Bedford College for Women where she met Quaker feminist Edith M. Pye, who later became president of WILPF (1933-34)
ZABEL YESSAYAN
1878 - 1942/43, Armenia
Born in Constantinople, Zabel Yessayan crisscrossed continents during the tumultuous years of the rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid and the disastrous WW1, writing novels, providing relief for victims, speaking out against injustice, and bearing witness to gross violations of human rights. She escaped her would be captors in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide only to be apprehended 22 years later by Stalin’s henchmen after defending her fellow writers in Soviet Armenia. Accused of being a French spy, she survived six years in prison while all along claiming her innocence.
AUGUSTE KIRCHHOFF
1867 - 1940, Germany
Auguste Kirchhoff saw the misery and suppression of women through law, economy and social discrimination. She worked as artist, social worker, journalist and teacher. She was engaged for women's voting rights, education of girls, sexual reforms, emancipation and protection of mothers. Her pacifism was radical, she struggled against patriotism and antisemitism; she promoted reconciliation with Denmark, France and Poland and was convinced that "equality, freedom and sisterhood cannot grow in a capitalist system". Persecuted by Nazis, she committed suicide.
VILMA GLÜCKLICH
1872 - 1927, Hungary
Vilma Glücklich, Hungarian educational reformer, pacifist and women's rights activist. In 1896, she became the first woman in Hungary to receive a degree from the Faculty of Philosophy in the Budapest State University, after having been the first woman admitted to a Hungarian university. Elected a member of the presidential committee of the National Association of Female Employees (1902), co-founder of the Hungarian Feminist Association (Feministák Egyesülete) or HFA (1904), co-founder of the Women's International League for peace and Freedom (1915), member of the Supervision Committee of the Municipal administration of Budapest (1918), co-founder secretary general of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (1924-1926). She became one of two females active in the democratic regime in 1918. Because of this, she was deprived of her work and exiled in 1921, after which she emigrated to Switzerland.
ALICE HAMILTON
1869-1970, USA
Alice Hamilton was an American physician, research scientist, and author. She became the first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University. Her scientific research focused on the study of occupational illnesses and the dangerous effects of industrial metals and chemical compounds. In addition to her scientific work, Hamilton was a social-welfare reformer, humanitarian, peace activist; she participated together with Jane Addams in the founding WILPF congresses in 1915/19.
CONSTANZE HALLGARTEN
1881-1969, Germany
Constanze Hallgarten was a German feminist from the bourgeois-radical movement; she was a leading figure of the German peace movement and warned already in 1923: Hitler/the fascist mean war! she ended up on their black list and had to emigrate to France and the US; she came back in 1955 to Germany to re-build the Munich group of WILPF and was engaged against the re-armament of Germany.
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