Marie Thora Frederikke Pedersen (1875–1954) was a Danish teacher, school inspector and women's rights proponent who was active in the

Danish Union of Teachers The Danish Union of Teachers ( da, Danmarks Lærerforening or DLF) is a trade union in Denmark. The union represents 97% of all primary and lower secondary teachers, and in 2005 it had a membership of 85,000. The union was founded in 1874. In ...

(''Danmarks Lærerforening'') and 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 ...

(''Dansk Kvindesamfund''). As a representative of these organizations on the parliamentary salary commission established in 1917, she was instrumental in achieving progress on civil servants' pay. Her efforts led to the Pay Act (''Lønningsloven'') of 1919 which introduced equal pay for men and women. She also succeeded in introducing improvements for Danish schools based on her international experience in education.

Biography

Born on 21 October 1875 in Øster Hurup near

Hadsund ) , image_map = Hadsund Havn fra luften..jpg , image_seal = Hadsund segl 1937.png , image_shield = Coat of arms of Hadsund.svg , pushpin_map = Denmark , pushpin_label_position = , push ...

in the east of Jutland, Marie Thora Frederikke Pedersen was the daughter of the schoolteacher Niels Christian Pedersen (1843–1941) and Karen Marie Andersen (1847–1924). Against her father's will, 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 to train as a teacher. After qualifying in 1900, she returned to Jutland where she was employed by the

Aalborg Aalborg (, , ) is Denmark's fourth largest town (behind Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense) with a population of 119,862 (1 July 2022) in the town proper and an urban population of 143,598 (1 July 2022). As of 1 July 2022, the Municipality of Aalb ...

school authority from 1901 to 1945. Pedersen is remembered above all for her work between 1915 and 1919 on achieving equal pay. After wages for civil servants had fallen by more than 10% during the First World War, the

(''Danmarks Lærerforening'', DLF) initiated the reform process. Together with Marie Mortensen, Johanne M. Sørensen and Lucie Jensen, Pedersen was elected to DLF's executive board in 1916, where she called for equal pay for equal work but faced opposition from the union's representatives. In 1917, the Danish parliament

Rigsdagen Rigsdagen () was the name of the national legislature of Denmark from 1849 to 1953. ''Rigsdagen'' was Denmark's first parliament, and it was incorporated in the Constitution of 1849. It was a bicameral legislature, consisting of two houses, the ...

established a committee on pay for civil servants. With the support of the Women's Society and Copenhagen's Teachers' Association, Pedersen and two other representatives were appointed to the committee. Once again, she faced fierce opposition but in the end her views were supported. As a result, the Pay Act (''Lønningsloven'') of 1919 introduced equal pay for men and women. From 1919, Pedersen was in introducing several improvements to the curriculum in Danish schools, culminating in the 1937 Schools Act (''Skoleloven''). On the political front, she was a member of the Social Liberal Party, serving on the executive board from 1918 to 1926 and from 1939 to 1943 was a member of Aalborg's city council. From 1908 to 1915, she headed Aalborg's Women's Suffrage Association. Thora Pedersen died on 29 October 1954 in Aalborg where she is buried.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pedersen, Thora 1875 births 1954 deaths Danish women's rights activists Danish suffragists Danish feminists 20th-century Danish educators 20th-century Danish women educators Danish women in politics People from Mariagerfjord Municipality