Élisabeth Renaud (August 8, 1846 – October 15, 1932), was a French teacher, socialist activist, and feminist.

Early life

Catherine Émilie Renaud was born in

Seloncourt Seloncourt () is a commune in the Doubs department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. Geography Seloncourt lies from Montbéliard on the banks of the Gland, which flows into the Doubs at Audincourt. It is only from Switz ...

(

Doubs Doubs (, ; ; frp, Dubs) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. Named after the river Doubs, it had a population of 543,974 in 2019. She came from a

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 ...

working class background. In 1870, she obtained the thanks to her employment at the factory. She then became a governess in an aristocratic family in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Activism

Renaud took part in the national congress of the French Workers' Party in July 1897. In ''L'Humanité nouvelle'' for March and April 1898, she wrote an article on "La Femme au XXe siècle" based on a lecture she gave on October 28, 18972. She stated, for example, that:— "The feminists worthy of the name work to solve the social question by putting the woman, whom centuries of a depressing education have inferiorized, in a condition to take her place in a new society." In 1899,

Louise Saumoneau Louise Saumoneau (17 December 1875 – 23 February 1950) was a French feminist who later renounced feminism as being irrelevant to the class struggle. She became a union leader and a prominent socialist. During World War I she was active in the int ...

and Élisabeth Renaud created the

Groupe Feministe Socialiste The Groupe Feministe Socialiste was founded in 1899 by Louise Saumoneau and Elisabeth Renaud, both working class socialists who wished to bring feminism to the working class in France. The socialist movement and the feminist movement both existed, ...

(GFS) following the death of

Aline Valette Aline Valette (née Alphonsine Goudeman (5 October 1850 – 21 March 1899) was a French feminist and socialist. She believed that society should provide support to women engaged in motherhood, the most important of all occupations. Early years Al ...

. The GFS manifesto was signed by four women, all from modest backgrounds, who associated their trades with their names: Louise Saumoneau ( seamstress), Élisabeth Renaud (teacher), Estelle Mordelet and Florestine Malseigne (

tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...

s).Sowerwine, 1982, p. 85. The GFS manifesto protested the "double oppression of women, exploited on a large scale by capitalism, subject to men by laws and especially by prejudice." GFS experienced some strife in the form of conflict between its two founders, who had had their differences from the beginning. Renaud's goals were conciliatory; she hoped to bridge the gap between socialism and bourgeois feminism. Saumoneau, on the other hand, hated the bourgeois feminists, feeling that they were irrevocably out of touch with the realities of the working class. In 1902, Renaud left the party. In September 1899, in the middle of the

Dreyfus affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

, this group militated in favor of

Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...

Personal life

In 1881, she married a printer who died in 1886, leaving her a widow with her two children. Their daughter, Émilie Baduel, became a teacher and married Léo Guesde in April 1908. Élisabeth Renaud died in the

13th arrondissement of Paris The 13th arrondissement of Paris (''XIIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''treizième''. The arrondissement, called Gobelins, is situated ...

, October 15, 1932.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Renaud, Elisabeth 1846 births 1932 deaths People from Doubs 19th-century French educators 19th-century French women educators French socialist feminists