Louise Otto-Peters

Louise Otto-Peters (born 26 March 1819, Meissen, Germany - died 13 March 1895, Leipzig, Germany) was a German writer, feminist, poet, journalist, and women's rights movement activist. She often wrote under the pseudonym of Otto Stern. James Chastain , Ohio University] She is widely acknowledged as the founder of the organized German women's movement.

Life

Louise Otto-Peters was the daughter of a successful lawyer. She was well educated by private tutors. Both her parents died when she was young and she was forced to consider how she would earn a living. She took up writing in the 1840s producing novels, short stories, poetry, and political articles for journals. She witnessed the effects of the industrial revolution taking place in Germany and supported campaigns for political and social reform. She was a friend of Robert Blum, who became a deputy to the Frankfurt Parliament following the revolution of 1848. McMillan, University of Strathclyde]

Otto-Peters was inspired by the revolutionary ideas sweeping across Europe in 1848. In that year she founded the newspaper, "Frauen-Zeitung" (Women's News). Brooklyn Museum database] Its masthead bore the paper's motto: "Dem Reich der Freiheit werb ich Bürgerinnen!" ( "I am recruiting female citizens for the realm of freedom!"). It inspired the formation of women's circles across Germany. "Frauen-Zeitung" was suppressed in 1852 and Otto-Peters retired from political life for a while.

In 1866, she co-founded, with Auguste Schmidt and others, the "Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein" (General Union of German Women) in Leipzig. The goals of the Union were stated in Otto-Peters' pamphlet "Das Recht der Frauen auf Erwerb" (Women's Right to Work).

The Union had 11,000 members by 1876. Otto-Peters served as joint president, with Schmidt, for the rest of her life. They also jointly edited the house journal, "Neue Bahnen" (New Paths).

Works

*"Schloss und Fabrik" (Castle and Factory)" 1846
*"Speech of a German Girl" 1848
*"Frauenleben der Gegenwart" (The Right of Women to Participate) " 1866
*"Frauenleben im Deutschen Reich" (Women's Rights in the German Reich)" 1876

Bibliography

*Adler, Hans. "On a Feminist Controversy: Louise Otto vs. Louise Aston," "in Joeres, Ruth-Ellen B. and M.J. Maynes, eds., German Women in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: A Social and Literary History. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986: 193-214.

*Joeres, Ruth-Ellen Boetcher. "Die Anfänge der deutschen Frauenbewegung: Louise Otto-Peters." Frankfurt a/M: Fischer, 1983.

*Joeres, Ruth-Ellen Boetcher. "Louise Otto and Her Journals: A Chapter in Nineteenth-Century German Feminism," Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, IV (1979): 100-29.

*Koepcke, Cordula. "Louise Otto-Peters. Die rote Demokratin." Freiburg: Herder, 1981.

*Diethe, Carol. "The life and work of Germany's founding feminist Louise Otto-Peters" Lewiston : Edwin Mellen Press, 2002 (in English)

Notes

References

# [http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/ip/ottopetr.htm Louise Otto-Peters] Biography at Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. James Chastain , Ohio University. Accessed January 2008
# [http://www.worc.ac.uk/CHIC/suffrage/coredocs/biograph.htm Louise Otto (Peters) (1819-1895)] Entry at "Biographies: Women's Suffrage" by Professor James F. McMillan, University of Strathclyde. Accessed January 2008
# [http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/luise_otto_peter.php Brooklyn Museum] DinnerParty Database of notable women. Accessed January 2008