Jenny d'Héricourt (9 september 1809

Besançon Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerl ...

, France – 12 january 1875

Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine (, literally ''Saint-Ouen on Seine'') is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department in the Île-de-France region of France. It is located in the northern suburbs of Paris, from the centre of Paris. The commune was call ...

, France), also Jenny P. d'Héricourt, was a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

activist, writer, and a physician-midwife. She was born Jeanne-Marie-Fabienne Poinsard, in

, France, to

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

parents. Her father, Jean-Pierre Poinsard, a clock gilder, was born in the town of Héricourt,

Haute-Saône Haute-Saône (; Arpitan: ''Hiôta-Sona''; English: Upper Saône) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of northeastern France. Named after the river Saône, it had a population of 235,313 in 2019.Étienne Cabet Étienne Cabet (; January 1, 1788 – November 9, 1856) was a French philosophy, French philosopher and utopian socialist who founded the Icarians, Icarian movement. Cabet became the most popular socialist advocate of his day, with a special appe ...

, the French

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

, and took part in the

Revolution of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...

. She studied medicine privately in Paris in the 1850s, and later practiced

midwifery Midwifery is the health science and health profession that deals with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period (including care of the newborn), in addition to the sexual and reproductive health of women throughout their lives. In many cou ...

in Paris and Chicago. She lived in the United States from 1863 to 1873 and was active in the feminist movement there also. D'Hericourt helped develop an unofficial international network of feminists during the first half of the 19th century. They provided each other with moral support and exchanged ideas. She also wrote an influential rebuttal to the

sexist Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...

essays of the

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Socia ...

and historian

Jules Michelet Jules Michelet (; 21 August 1798 – 9 February 1874) was a French historian and an author on other topics whose major work was a history of France and its culture. His aphoristic style emphasized his anti-clerical republicanism. In Michelet's ...

Further reading