Mimi Sverdrup Lunden (13 June 1894 – 8 January 1955) was a Norwegian educator, non-fiction writer and proponent for women's rights

Personal life

Lunden was born in Sulen,

Sogn og Fjordane Sogn og Fjordane (; English: "Sogn and Fjordane") was, up to 1 January 2020, a county in western Norway, when it was merged to become part of Vestland county. Bordering previous counties Møre og Romsdal, Oppland, Buskerud, and Hordaland, the c ...

, a daughter of Lutheran theologian

Edvard Sverdrup Johan Edvard Sverdrup (22 June 1861 – 21 January 1923) was a Norwegian educator, author and church leader. Sverdrup was one of the key theologians in the Church of Norway in the first few decades of the 1900s. Biography Sverdrup was born in Ba ...

and Agnes Vollan (1866–1952). She was the sister of oceanographer Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (1888–1957), United States General

Leif Sverdrup Leif Johan Sverdrup CBE (11 January 1898 – 2 January 1976) was a Norway, Norwegian-born American civil engineer and General officer, general with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his ...

(1898-1976) and

Einar Sverdrup Einar Sverdrup (18 December 1895 – 13 May 1942) was a Norwegian mining engineer and businessman. He was the CEO of the Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani, operating at Svalbard. When the integrity of Svalbard was threatened during World War I ...

(1895–1942) CEO of

Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK), or simply Store Norske, is a Norwegian coal mining company based on the Svalbard archipelago. It was formed in 1916, after a Norwegian purchase of the American Arctic Coal Company (ACC). The company ...

. In 1918 she married Tallak Lunden (1886–1930), with whom she had two daughters. Her husband was director at Kongsberg Municipal Middle School prior to his death in 1930.

Career

When she was 12 years old, her family moved to Kristiania (now Oslo). She graduated

artium Examen artium was the name of the academic certification conferred in Denmark and Norway, qualifying the student for admission to university studies. Examen artium was originally introduced as the entrance exam of the University of Copenhagen in 1 ...

in 1912 and began studying Philology at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top univers ...

where she graduated in 1918. Lunden worked for a time as a teacher at Kongsberg Municipal Middle School. After her husband's death in 1930, she completed a course of study at the University of Oslo in 1931. She was employed as a lecturer at Vestheim School and later at Hegdehaugen School in Oslo. While she still had young children and her husband was seriously ill, she was terminated as a "married teacher". This experience reinforced her lifelong commitment in women's rights. In 1936, she joined the

Norwegian Association for Women's Rights The Norwegian Association for Women's Rights ( no, italic=no, Norsk Kvinnesaksforening; NKF) is Norway's oldest and preeminent women's and girls' rights organization and works "to promote gender equality and all women's and girls' human rights thr ...

(''Norsk Kvinnesaksforening''). From 1948 she chaired the Norwegian chapter of the

Women's International Democratic Federation Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) is an international organization with the stated goal of working for women's rights. It was established in 1945 and was most active during the Cold War. It initially focussed on anti-fascism, wor ...

. Lunden was also an author. In 1922 she was awarded a prize from the Nansen Foundation. She wrote a number of noted books. Additionally she published articles about issues which concerned her: women's rights, international peacekeeping, and educational issues. Her best-known book is ''De frigjorte hender'' from 1941. The book is a study of women's important and varied work in the pre-industrial society. The book also noted that in the industrial age, much of this work was taken over by factories, machines and men.

Selected works

*''Kvinnen og maskinen. Kvinnearbeidet i støpeskjeen'', 1946 *''Foreningsarbeide, en håndbok'', 1948 *''Barnas århundre'', 1948 *''Den lange arbeidsdagen'', 1948

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lunden, Mimi Sverdrup 1894 births 1955 deaths People from Solund University of Oslo alumni Norwegian educators Norwegian feminists Norwegian women's rights activists Norwegian non-fiction writers Norwegian women non-fiction writers Norwegian Association for Women's Rights people 20th-century non-fiction writers