Wilhelmine Theodore Marie Cauer, née Schelle, usually known as Minna Cauer (1 November 1841 in Freyenstein – 3 August 1922 in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

) was a German

pedagogue Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

, activist in the so-called "radical" wing of the German

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. Th ...

feminist movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such i ...

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaig ...

and journalist. Alongside

Anita Augspurg Anita Theodora Johanna Sophie Augspurg (22 September 1857 – 20 December 1943) was a German jurist, actress, writer, activist of the radical feminist movement and a pacifist. Biography Augspurg was born the youngest daughter of the lawyer Wi ...

, Cauer was the most prominent figure in the radical feminist movement. In the 1890s she was the undisputed representative and had a special talent for winning over new and younger women to the feminist movement.

Life

Minna Cauer Street Sign Berlin Central Train Station

The daughter of a

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

pastor, Cauer grew up in Freyenstein, in the

Province of Brandenburg The Province of Brandenburg (german: Provinz Brandenburg) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1945. Brandenburg was established in 1815 from the Kingdom of Prussia's core territory, comprised the bulk of the historic Margraviate of Brandenburg ...

. She married a left-wing educator and physician, August Latzel in 1862, but was widowed in 1866. She then trained as a

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

, working in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

for a year before marrying Eduard Cauer, a school inspector, and moving with him to

. Widowed for a second time in 1881, Cauer resumed work as a teacher and started studying

women's history Women's history is the study of the role that women have played in history and the methods required to do so. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights throughout recorded history, personal achievement over a period of ...

. She founded Frauenwohl (Women's Welfare Association) in Berlin in 1888, leading it until 1919, campaigning for women's rights and abortion rights. With

Helene Lange Helene Lange (9 April 1848 in Oldenburg – 13 May 1930 in Berlin) was a pedagogue and feminist. She is a symbolic figure of the international and German civil rights feminist movement. In the years from 1919 to 1921 she was a member of the Ham ...

and

Franzisca Tiburtius Franziska Tiburtius (24 January 1843 – 5 May 1927) was a German physician and advocate for women's education. Life and work Tiburtius was one of the first two women to qualify as a doctor in imperial Germany. Born on Rügen Island in Pomer ...

she worked to establish the Realkurse girls' high school in Berlin, which opened in 1889 as the first educational establishment to prepare women for university study.Jean Macksey and Kenneth Macksey, ''The Book of Women's Achievements'', Stein and Day, 1976, p. 72 She founded the Commercial Union of Female Salaried Employees, one of the first nonpolitical women's trade unions, in 1889. In 1893 she cofounded the Girls' and Women's Groups for Social Assistance Work (''Mädchen- und Frauengruppen für Soziale Hilfsarbeit'').Minna Cauer Papers
/ref> In 1894 she joined with

and

Marie Stritt Marie Stritt (18 February 1855 – 16 December 1928) was a German feminist and a leading force in the international and German women's suffrage movement. She helped worked towards woman's education and fought against state regulated prostitution ...

to establish the Federation of German Women's Associations (FGWA) She worked for the feminist newspaper '' Die Frauenbewegung'' (The Women's Movement) from 1895 to 1919. In 1896 she was president at the International Congress of Women's Work and Women's Endeavours in Berlin, the first international women's conference to be held in Germany. Increasingly radical, Cauer helped establish the Union of Progressive Women's Associations in 1899. In 1902 the suffrage movement gained the backing of the FGWA, and with Anita Augspurg,

Lida Gustava Heymann Lida Gustava Heymann (15 March 1868 – 31 July 1943) was a German feminist, pacifist and women's rights activist. Together with her partner Anita Augspurg she was one of the most prominent figures in the bourgeois women's movement. She ...

and Marie Stritt Cauer co-founded the German Union for Women's Suffrage (''Deutscher Verband fur Frauenstimmrecht''), which pursued both suffrage cause and moral campaigns, such as that against state-regulated prostitution. In 1908, frustrated by the disinterest of the Free-minded People's Party in women's suffrage, Cauer founded a more militant group, the Prussian Union for Women's Suffrage. She joined the left-liberal Democratic Union. Resigning from the suffrage union in 1912, she joined a new German Women's Suffrage Association in 1914. However, with the German women's suffrage movement in disarray, Cauer turned to pacifist activities throughout

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. Her papers are held at the

International Institute of Social History The International Institute of Social History (IISH/IISG) is one of the largest archives of labor and social history in the world. Located in Amsterdam, its one million volumes and 2,300 archival collections include the papers of major figur ...

References

External links

Chronology of Cauer's life
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cauer, Minna 1841 births 1922 deaths People from Ostprignitz-Ruppin People from the Province of Brandenburg Democratic Union (Germany) politicians German Peace Society members Lutheran pacifists German journalists German schoolteachers German feminists 20th-century German women