Anna Salmberg, née ''Brinck'' (1788,

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– 1868,

Åbo Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a List of cities and towns in Finland, city and former Capital city, capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura (Archipelago Sea), Aura River, in the region of Southwest Finland, Finland Proper ...

), was a Finnish educator. She was the founder and manager of '' Salmbergska flickpensionen'' ('Salmberg Pension for Girls'), one of the most famed and fashionable educational institutions for females in Finland in her time.

Life

Anna Salmberg was born in Denmark but was raised in Danish Caribbean, where English became her first language. She married the Finnish sea captain Arvid Abraham Salmberg (d. 1809), and moved with him to Finland. She had no children. When she was widowed, she supported herself as a teacher. In 1823, she founded and managed the ''Salmberg Pension for Girls'' in Åbo. Since the foundation of the

Christina Krook Christina Krook (1742 – 1806) was a Finnish educator. She was the principal of a Finishing school for girls in Åbo, regarded as the most successful in Finland at the time. Life Christina Krook was the daughter of the official Gustav Krook (1704- ...

school in the 1780s, there had been a few private girls' schools in Finland, which remained the only secondary education available for females in Finland until the foundation of the ''

Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Åbo Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Åbo (Swedish Women's School of Åbo) or only Svenska fruntimmersskolan (Swedish Women's School) was a Girls' School in Turku (Swedish: Åbo) in Finland, active from 1844 to 1955. Alongside its equivalent in Helsinki, ...

'' and ''

Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Helsingfors Svenska fruntimmersskolan i Helsingfors ('Swedish Women's School of Helsinki') or only Svenska fruntimmersskolan ('Swedish Women's School') was a Girls' School in Helsinki in Finland, active from 1844 to 1974. Alongside its equivalent in Åbo ( fi ...

'' (1844). Of these schools, the Salmberg school in Åbo, and the school of Baroness von Rosen in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, were described as the most notable. Anna Salmberg defended women's right to education. In her correspondence, she expressed the view, that although the women of Finland may be ignorant, it was the fault of their families, and particularly their fathers, for keeping them that way by not providing them with education and then calling them ignorant.Suomen kansallisbiografia (Finland's national biography)
/ref> As was customary for schools of her kind, most of the education focused on accomplishments, such as drawing, embroidery and etiquette, but her school was recommended for a high level in the subjects, and her school offered more languages than were usual for a girls' school. In addition to French, she also tutored in the English language, at a time when that language was considered more important to learn for men and it was still otherwise unknown in girls' schools in Finland. Her most known students were the writer

Fredrika Runeberg Fredrika Charlotta Runeberg (née Tengström; 2 September 1807, Jakobstad – 27 May 1879, Helsinki) was a Finnish (Finland-Swedish) novelist, journalist and the wife of Finland's national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. She was a pioneer of Finnish ...

and the poet

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, both of whom studied at her school in 1824–1825.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salmberg, Anna 1788 births 1868 deaths 19th-century Finnish educators Finnish educators Finnish schoolteachers Finnish people of Danish descent