Margareta Momma

Anna Margareta Momma (née von Bragner) (1702–1772) was a Swedish publisher, managing editor, journalist and feminist. Chronologically, she may be counted as the first professionally active female journalists in Sweden.

Background

Anna Margareta was probably born in the Netherlands. In 1735, she married the newspaper editor Peter Momma. Peter Momma was the publisher of several popular papers in Stockholm, such as Stockholm Gazette (1742) and Stockholms Weckoblad (1745), and Margareta was from the beginning his active colleague and participator in the process of making the papers.

Activity

She is believed to have been the sole editor behind the French language edition of Stockholm Gazette (1742–52). She is also believed to have been one of the two writers behind the Swedish language paper Samtal emellan Argi och skugga och obekant Fruentimbers Skugga ("A talk between Argus' shadow and the unknown shadow of a woman newly arrived to the kingdom of Death") published from 1738, written as a debate between a male (Argus' shadow) and a female journalist (the shadow of a woman). This was a radical paper where the writers were critical of religious repression and censorship, obedience to authority, and issues of war and peace, morality, and independence; the paper was censored several times by the authorities. Here, she satirizes the letters from some readers who criticize the thought of a woman discussing philosophy.

Context

During the Age of Liberty in Sweden between 1718 and 1771, several papers were published written for and by women. They were publications typical of the Age of Enlightenment and they discussed recent events and news, politics, philosophy and the position of women and gender equality, which presaged first-wave feminism in the English-speaking world. These papers sometimes pamphlets, and often written in the form of letters between two female correspondents. They were often temporary, published during one year, and quickly replaced by new ones the next, possibly by the same writers, under a new name and new signatures. These papers became common during the 1730s and were very common in the last years of the Age of Liberty. These writers were Sweden's first female journalists, but since they all wrote under pseudonyms (mostly French names), in most cases they cannot be identified.

She had three children, among them Elsa Fougt, who took over her and Peter's papers when they died in 1772.

See also

• Catharina Ahlgren
• Henrika Juliana von Liewen
• Anna Hammar-Rosén
• Louise Flodin

References

• Samtal emellan Argi Skugga och en obekant Fruentimebers Skugga. Nyligen ankommen til de dödas Rijke (1738–39).
• Stockholm Gazette: redacteur tussen 1742 en 1752.
• Margareta Berger, Pennskaft. Kvinnliga journalister i svensk dagspress 1690-1975 (Stockholm 1977).
• Lisbeth Larsson, ‘Min kære søster og uforlignelige ven! Om 1700-tallets svenske presse og dens fruentimmer tidsskrifter’, in: Eva Haettner Aurelius en Anne-Marie Mai red., Nordisk kvindeliteraturhistorie 1 (Kopenhagen 1993) 427-439.
• Lotte Jensen, ‘Bij uitsluiting voor de vrouwelijke sekse geschikt’. Vrouwentijdschriften en journalistes in Nederland in de achttiende en negentiende eeuw (Hilversum 2001) 55-56.
• Ann Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer. Författarroll och retorik hos frihetstidens kvinnliga författare (Uppsala 2001) 165-187, 339-345.
• Mikaela Lirberg en Anna-Karin Skoglund, ‘Ett vittert fruntimmer’. En studie av boktryckaränkor och speciellt fru Fougt (Magisteruppsats i bilioteks- och informationsvetenskap vid bibliotekshögskolan/biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap 2002) 49 [ook op http://www.hb.se/bhs/slutversioner/2002/02-49.pdf].
• Signum Svenska kulturhistoria: Den Gustavianska tiden
• Mikaela Lirberg och Anna-Karin Skoglund: Ett vittert fruntimmer

Persondata
Name	Momma, Margareta
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1702
Place of birth
Date of death	1772
Place of death