Frederica (Frederikke) Louise Ernst (1714 – 1781) was a Danish merchant, ship owner and slave trader.Gold, Carol, 1942- (2018). Women in business in early modern Copenhagen : 1740-1835. Museum Tusculanum. . OCLC 1038577313.

Early life and background

Ernst was born in 1714 in Copenhagen, the daughter of architect and government official

Johan Conrad Ernst Johan Conrad Ernst (16 June 1666 – 23 September 1750) was a Danish architect and royal master builder. He was the son of Johan Adolf Ernst, a successful linen merchant who had immigrated from Nuremberg and had a luxurious residence on Amagertor ...

and Magdalene Foss. Her maternal grandfather was rector of the Metropolitan School Peder Nielsen Foss (1631-1698). Her two elder brothers Carl Ernst Ernst (born 1705) and Frederik Christian Ernst /born 1708) died young.

Career

Being an unmarried woman, she was legally under the guardianship of her closest male relative for life. In 1758, however, she successfully applied for legal majority. She was a successful businesswoman and invested in a number of business: she owned shares of a warehouse, ships and a sugar plantation on Danish

St. Croix Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...

. She was also involved in the

Danish slave trade The Danish-Norwegian slave trade commenced in 1733 and ended in 1807 when the abolition of slaves was announced. The location of the slave trade primarily occurred in the Danish West Indies ( Saint Thomas, Saint Croix, and Saint John) where sla ...

. In 1765, she founded a factory for the cleaning and combing flax and hemp. This was an innovation in Denmark, involving machinery advanced for its time. Initially successful, in 1772, she tried to recoup her loans, but her money was tied up in the West Indies. This was a setback, and by the time of her death in 1781, she had lost most of her money. Ernst was rare as a female industrialist in Denmark, at the time, but she was particularly rare because she was unmarried: almost all businesswomen in Denmark of the time, especially within bigger business, were widows or married women who had their husband's permission to involve in business, while unmarried women were very rare.

References

External links

Frederikke Louise Ernst
at geni.com {{DEFAULTSORT: 1781 deaths 1714 births 18th-century Danish businesswomen 18th-century Danish businesspeople 18th-century Danish women landowners 18th-century Danish landowners Danish businesspeople in shipping Danish planters Danish slave traders Danish sugar plantation owners Ship owners 18th-century Danish farmers 18th-century Danish women farmers Women slave owners

Early life and background

Career

See also

References

External links