Hedwig Friederike Karoline Auguste Kettler (19 September 1851 – 5 January 1937) was a German

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, writer and education reformer. She campaigned for equal educational opportunities for boys and girls, and led the effort to establish the first girls' high school (') in Germany.

Biography

Hedwig Reder was born in Harburg (now part of Hamburg), in 1851, and grew up in

Osnabrück Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population ...

. Her parents were Gustav Reder, a railway officer, and Hedwig Elisabeth Brüning. She married Julius Kettler, her cousin, in 1880; they had two children together. The Kettler family lived in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

and relocated 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 1893, when Julius was hired to direct the city's statistical office. Fichte-Gymnasium Karlsruhe

Kettler advocated for the treatment of men and women as intellectual equals and for the right of girls to the same educational opportunities offered to boys. In 1881, she founded the magazine ' (Female profession: monthly for the interests of women's issues), to which she was the sole contributor, and in 1887, she began publishing ' (Library of women's issues). With a group of other women, in 1888, she established the ' (German Women's association for reform), which campaigned for equal education for males and females. In 1893, the organisation, which had been renamed ' (Association for the reform of women's education), led by Kettler, founded Germany's first '' Gymnasium'' (equivalent to high school) for girls in

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

, the . She assisted in founding the second German girls' high school in Hanover in 1899. Kettler withdrew her education reform efforts in 1901 when she became disillusioned with her peers in the '. She focused instead on writing, contributing short stories to various magazines and publishing two books, ' (''Everyday Stories'') and ' (''Sketches''). She wrote under the pseudonyms Johanna Kettler and Gotthard Kurland. She retired in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, where she died in 1937.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kettler, Hedwig 1851 births 1937 deaths German women's rights activists German women writers German educational theorists People from Osnabrück