Johanne Elisabeth Grundtvig (1856–1945) was a prominent Danish

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

activist, parliamentary stenographer, leading member of the

Danish Women's Society The Danish Women's Society or DWS ( da, Dansk Kvindesamfund) is Denmark's oldest women's rights organization. It was founded in 1871 by activist Matilde Bajer and her husband Fredrik Bajer; Fredrik was a Member of Parliament and the 1908 Nobel Peac ...

and editor of the organization's periodical ''

Kvinden og Samfundet ''Kvinden & Samfundet'' (''Woman & Society'') is a Danish feminist magazine and the official publication of the Danish Women's Society. It has been published since 1885. History The Danish Women's Society was founded in 1871 by Matilde Bajer and ...

''. In the 1880s, she was behind heated discussion on sexual morality calling for unmarried women to uphold their chastity.

Biography

Born on 1 December 1856 in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, Johanne Elisabeth Gtundtvig was the daughter of the archivist Johan Diderik Nicolaj Blicher Grundtvig (1822–1907) and Oline Vilhelmine Christiane Stenersen (1828–1893). She was the granddaughter of the influential philosopher

N.F.S. Grundtvig Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (; 8 September 1783 – 2 September 1872), most often referred to as N. F. S. Grundtvig, was a Danish pastor, author, poet, philosopher, historian, teacher and politician. He was one of the most influential peo ...

. She attended

N. Zahle's School N. Zahle's School (Danish: N. Zahles Skole) is a private school located on Nørre Voldgade in Copenhagen, Denmark. Named after its founder, Natalie Zahle (1827–1913), it now consists of two independently run primary schools and a Gymnasium. Hi ...

in Copenhagen where she qualified as a private school teacher in 1884 (although she never took up the teaching profession). In 1883, on the recommendation of the women's rights activist

Severine Casse Severine Andrea Casse née Engelbreth (1805–1898) was a Danish women's rights activist and an influential member of the Danish Women's Society. Intent on social and political reforms for women, she successfully fought for a wife's right to dispo ...

, she joined the Danish Women's Society, becoming editor of ''Kvinden og Samfundet'', first for 1885–1886 and again from 1890 to 1894. Here she collaborated with

Ida Falbe-Hansen Ida Mariette Helene Falbe-Hansen born Hansen (19 February 1849 – 23 September 1922) was a Danish educator, philologist and women's activist. A pioneer in the teaching of Swedish, she published textbooks and promoted Swedish literature in Denmark. ...

who became her close companion until she died in 1922. As the periodical's first editor, she included articles on women's unequal legal status in marriage as well international perspectives on women's affairs, especially in regard to Scandinavia. In 1887–1889 and again in 1891–1892, she was a board member of the Society. She then became a member of the board for the Society's Copenhagen branch which she headed from 1895 to 1897. In 1887, she caused considerable commotion in the Women's Society and beyond when she gave an address on "Nutidens sædelige Lighedskrav" (Moral Requirements of Our Times) which was published in ''Kvinden og Samfundet''. Calling for premarital chastity, she attacked both men and women, maintaining that men should adopt women's "purer" approach to sexual morals. The article triggered an ironic response from Georg Brandes, the leading literary critic of the day, in the newspaper '' Politiken''. Grundtvig successfully sued the paper, clearing herself of Brandes' allegations of fraud. While the outcome led to an increase in membership of the Women's Society, many continued to maintain that sex was not a relevant topic for the organization. In 1890, Grundtvig took up

stenography Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...

, becoming the first women to take the parliamentary stenography exam. Despite considerable opposition, she was the first woman to be employed as a stenographer by the Danish parliament, paving the way for others. She assisted Falbe-Hansen with the translation the works of the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf until she died in 1922, later continuing the work herself. Elisabeth Grundtvig died in the Frederiksberg district of Copenhagen on 10 February 1945.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grundtvig, Elisabeth 1856 births 1945 deaths People from Copenhagen Danish women's rights activists 19th-century Danish writers 19th-century Danish women writers 18th-century Danish translators 20th-century Danish translators