Ottilie Franziska Hoffmann (14 July 183520 December 1925) was a German educationalist and social reformer who came to prominence as a pioneering
temperance activist.
Early life and education
Ottilie Hoffmann was born in the central quarter of
Bremen
Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...
. Ludwig Otto Hoffmann, her father, was a successful
grain merchant
The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other ...
. She received a "sound" schooling. From her childhood diary entries it is apparent that she was keen that her life should make a difference in society. She was never attracted by the idea of marriage and family life. She studied to become a teacher, embarking on her teaching career in 1851.
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Career
As a young woman she was in particular influenced by the radical feminist writer .Hedwig Heyl Hedwig Heyl (c. 1853 - January 23, 1934) was a German businesswoman and author, active in social welfare causes.
She was born in Bremen in 1850. Her father was the industrialist Edouard Crüsemann. She married Georg Heyl at age 18, and when she ...
.[
In 1867, she teamed up with and Henny Sattler to set up the "League for expanding work opportunities for women" (''"Verein zur Erweiterung des weiblichen Arbeitsgebiets"''), later renamed as the "Women's Prosperity and Training League" (''"Frauen-Erwerbs- und Ausbildungs-Verein"'').][
The parents died in 1870 and 1871, which opened the way for a new phase in Ottilie's life. She went back to ]England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Between 1881 and 1890 she lived in Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
where she took on responsibility for the education of two daughters of the 9th Earl of Carlisle.[ It was also from Lady Carlisle that Hoffmann acquired the habit, which would later lead some of Bremen's more hidebound citizens to question her sanity, of placing a stout box in one corner of a city part and then standing on it to preach abstinence to passers-by.][
That was the background to a personal commitment to total abstinance that Ottilie Hoffmann made on 24 November 1882, an anniversary of her mother's death. All her energies were now directed towards the fight against alcohol abuse. In 1874 the "World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union" (WWCTU / ''"Weltbund Christlicher Abstinenter Frauen"'') was launched, initially in ]Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. The WWCTU's objectives and approach ensured that the temperance movement effectively became a part of the Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
movement that emerged in Europe and North America during the second half of the nineteenth century. Early in 1890 Ottilie Hoffmann returned to Bremen, where a rapidly unfolding social crisis was under way to the north of the main station in the city's main park. The construction work for that year's prestigious was being plagued with accidents caused by drunkenness.[ By at least one reckoning by 1894 she had become the leading representative in Bremen of the International Blue Cross Christian temperance movement.][ In 1910 and 1912 the "Mäßigkeitsverein" set up two so-called "milk exchanges" in each of the two parts of the newly enlarged freeports. This massively increased sales of fresh milk within the confines of the port area. There was still a massive danger to port workers from alcohol at the time: most of the workplace deaths could be traced back to alcohol consumption.][
In 1910, the "Ottilie Hoffmann White Ribbon House" (''das "Ottilie Hoffmann Haus Weiße Schleife"'') opened at New Street 14/15 (''"Neuenstraße 14/15"''). It was positioned in the western side of inner city in the business district by the Stephanien Quarter, which was then regarded as a working class residential district. This was the first house that the abstentionist Frauenbund owned. Over the years a reading room and a games room were installed along with a small lending library. In the expanded space on the first floor there slowly evolved a "middle-class kitchen", while downstairs meals were provided for poor and destitute people.]First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the Bremen Temperance Association and local groups from the German part of the WWCTU were called in to provide feeding points and meals for women and children made destitute by the war. They used their existing facilities for the purpose. In 1915 there were nine eating establishments and two "milk bars" involved in these mass catering operations. In addition the association were able to get hold of another fifteen canteen to use for the city-wide relief programme. This also meant administering the distribution of meals, bread and milk. During the period of the war approximately nine million meals were provided.[
In 1919, Hoffmann acquired the "good middle-class" eating establishment at Katharinenstraße 13 as her own project after she had failed to persuade other league members to back the purchase of a substantial building of this nature in the prosperous heart of the city. Subsequent developments endorsed her judgement. The Katharinenstraße house was well frequented and broadened the activities of the league in new directions. The place was used for school leavers' parties and other celebrations. Annual accounts show that it generated good revenues, and even, at times of financial crisis, net returns that could be used to compensate for the habitual deficits reported by the "Ottilie" temperance canteens in the harbour area. The 1932 accounts reported that: "Nearly all the secondary schools hold their 'Farewell parties' and class days with us. Our 'alcohol-free bowling' facilities provide a suitably exhilarating end-of-term celebration. Alongside the main party hall there are another three good sized dining rooms. There is the reading room on the second floor, next to a - sadly not very large - roof-garden where we put out deck chairs when the weather is good."]
Later life and death
In 1921, the year of her eighty-sixth birthday, Ottilie Hoffmann identified her successor. Anna Klara Fischer and Ottilie Hoffmann had first got into conversation in an over-filled express train to Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
in the early summer ("shortly before Whitsun
Whitsun (also Whitsunday or Whit Sunday) is the name used in Britain, and other countries among Anglicans and Methodists, for the Christian High Holy Day of Pentecost. It is the seventh Sunday after Easter, which commemorates the descent of the Ho ...
") in 1913. In 1921 Fischer took charge of both Hoffmann's Christian Temperance organisations, the Temperance League and the Abstinent Women's League. During the next few difficult decades she would prove herself a worthy successor.[
Ottile Hoffmann died at Bremen at the end of 1925. She was 90.
]
Celebration
In 1970, the "Bremer Mäßigkeitsverein" (''"Bremen Temperance Association"'') was renamed "Bremen Ottilie Hoffmann Association" (''"Bremer Verein Ottilie Hoffmann"''), the name under which it continues to exist.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffmann, Ottilie
1835 births
1925 deaths
People from Bremen (city)
19th-century German educators
German feminists
German temperance activists