Hedwig Dohm's 192nd Birthday

Today’s Doodle celebrates German author Hedwig Dohm. She was an early pioneer of feminism and an advocate for gender equality. 

Dohm was born in Berlin, Germany on this day in 1831 to a family of eighteen children. Dohm loved reading from an early age and found school exciting. However, her parents forced her to quit her formal education at fifteen and help out around the house. With hopes of continuing to learn, Dohm convinced her parents to let her attend Lehrerinnenseminar, a women’s teachers’ college. 

In 1853, Dohm married the editor-in-chief of the satirical weekly newspaper, Kladderadatsch. Her husband encouraged her literary ambitions and they’d spend hours in deep discussions about politics and art. In the following years, she gave birth to five children, four of them daughters. Dohm spent those early years teaching her children, determined to give her girls opportunities she herself didn’t have. Meanwhile, her house became a popular hangout for Berlin artists and intellectuals.

In the early 1870, when her children reached adulthood, Dohm pursued a career as a writer. She wrote and published her first piece, Was die Pastoren von den Frauen denken (What the Clergy Thinks About Women), in response to two conservatives’ writings that argued higher education would harm women. She became famous after publishing other essays like Die Antifeministen (The Antifeminists), a dissection of those who opposed women’s rights. At this time, Dohm was one of the few German feminists to advocate for women’s right to vote. 

She’d go on to write books like Sibilla Dalmar, Schicksale einer Seele, and Christa Rolan. Dohm often told stories of modern-day women who struggled against patriarchal societies. In 1888, she founded the Deutsche Frauenverein Reform and helped write the first chapters of the movement. The program advocated for women to be allowed to study all subjects in universities. Her work is celebrated for its witty social commentary.

Happy Birthday, Hedwig Dohm!