Cecilie Thoresen Krog

Ida Cecilie Thoresen Krog ( born March 7, 1858 in Eidsvoll, Akershus Province; † November 13, 1911 in Kristiania ) was a Norwegian women's rights activist. Notoriety she gained great that she became the first woman of her country took off in 1882, the High School. Then she enrolled as the first student at the University of Norway.

Life

Family and first years

Cecilie Thoresen grew together with three brothers and a sister in the small town of Eidsvoll, where in 1814 one of the most modern European constitutions had been adopted. Your hailing from the telemark father, Nils wind Feldt Thoresen, was district physician and a wealthy landowner, her mother, Marie Johanne Benneche, a well-read and linguistically gifted daughter of a merchant from Kristiania (now Oslo). Cecilie Thoresen As a child, a big soft spot for skiing, took part in races while also collected, which was then completely unusual for girls, experience in ski jumping.

You got some of them together with their brothers, private lessons. Even as a young girl, she began to lively interest in the advanced literature of their time. She read, for example, the lecture series, the main currents of literature of the nineteenth century ( Hovedstrømninger i det 19 Aarhundredes literature ), in her author, the Danish- Jewish scholar Georg Brandes, a modern literature beyond Romanticism and Biedermeier demanded that the current should provide " problems under debate ." Morning she was familiar with the feminist views in John Stuart Mill's later publication of The Subjection of Women (The Subjection of Women ) - the book had Brandes translated into Danish.

Middle School and High School

Your intellectual curiosity motivated them to strive for the best possible education. Looking back, she said in an interview in 1907: "I was twenty years old when I decided to make a high school diploma in order to later become something. " This examination, she presented in 1879 at Nissen Girls' School ( Nissen Pikeskole ) in Kristiania from. After that they should " learn something decent " and began a course for office ladies at a trade school. After she had " bored for eight days ," according to his own statement, she broke off the training. She wrote a letter to her father and told him that they would like to take the exam artium that was entrance requirement for university and high school equivalent. Until then, young women of education, however, was denied. Nevertheless promised her father, who was close to the ruling conservatives and the Civil Morgenbladet subscribed to support them. Cecilie Thoresen themselves enthusiastic at this time for the ideas of the opposition politician Johan Sverdrup, the critical civil servants and peasants gathered around and significantly promoted the introduction of parliamentarism in Norway. My father turned in a letter to the responsible churches and the Ministry of Education, but received - on the date December 24, 1880 - the answer is that Cecilie could not be selected for the European Baccalaureate.

Cecilie Thoresen then took on even contact with the Church Minister Jens Holmboe, who passed the ball to the only at this time University of the State in Christiania. There, the concern of the young woman from the relevant college was rejected with only one dissenting vote. However, Cecilie Thoresen did not give up and now sought the assistance of Hagbard Berner, a trained lawyers and staff Sverdrup, was open to political reform, and in 1869 the radically liberal daily newspaper Dagbladet co-founded. Berner worked out a private bill, which was in the two chambers of the Storting, the Norwegian Parliament, and treated initially met with resistance. The draft, it was said, would be detrimental to the company, which may draw only take full advantage of the work of the woman, "if gebührlich regardless of their natural dispositions, her peculiar emotional life as well as on its investments and benefits during the education and training " taken would. On 15 June 1882, despite such concerns by a large majority a new law, which it henceforth women allowed the examination of arts store. Unangeachtet whose theology professor Fredrik Petersen continued to try to keep Cecilie Thoresen of the tests. He pointed out that they have completed their secondary school education only with limited math curriculum, as was also provided for girls; it is therefore for the exam not allow artium. But Cecilie Thoresen was allowed to participate in an additional test, which she passed with success. The way high school was so free for them. Shortly thereafter, she was - at the age of 24 years - all tests with an overall score very well. Her best subjects included Old Norse, English, history, mathematics ( oral) and natural sciences.

Study

Already on September 8, 1882, Cecilie Thoresen enrolled in the ballroom of the university for a degree at the University of Kristiania. The historical significance of this act was aware of his contemporaries. All major newspapers posted rapporteur in the university, and the then rector of the university, the law professor Ludvig Aubert, gave a speech in which he praised the new opportunities for young women without these, he added, " their natural limitations exceed " would need. For a year, Cecilie Thoresen also went abroad, at the University of Copenhagen, where she studied mathematics and science. However, their study did not complete Cecilie Thoresen, as they the lawyer Fredrik Arentz Krog, a brother of the woman 's rights activist Gina Krog, married, and in quick succession, two sons and a daughter gave birth. In an interview in 1907 she said: "I had probably ever before to get married, but I was of the opinion that a study should be possible to continue, even with small children. However, this was not. My children took me a lot to complete, when they were still small. " In addition, Cecilie Thoresen strong social pressures regarding the role of mother was facing. Nevertheless, it allowed her the use of new generations of women pursuing studies.

Commitment as a women's rights activist

Already on November 2, 1883 Cecile Thoresen belonged to the co-founders of a private discussion club, which was the symbolic name Skuld - after a Norn in Norse mythology, which embodied the future. She was also elected to the first board of the club. A total of 24 women, including some who were married to Sverdrup colleagues, met in turn at their homes and helped each other presentations on " scholarly " and " profound " topics before in order to train as a panelist and speakers. For this club was founded in 1884, the Kvinnesaksforening Norsk (Norwegian Women's Rights Association ), whose first chairman was a man, that Hagbard Berner. Deputy Chairman Cecilie Thoresen sister Gina Krog is selected, the entered uncompromising for the equality of women. 1885 counted Cecilie Thoresen of the ten women who called the Kvinnestemmerettsforeningen to life, an institution that had the goal to enforce women's suffrage in their country. The success of her work, she did not live, however, because Norway allowed women the choice as one of the first European countries in the first place in 1913, two years after Cecilie Thoresen's death. 1904 also went on their own initiative, the establishment of the Norske Kvinners Nasjonalråd ( National Council of the Norwegian women) back, an umbrella organization of various women's groups, which the International Council of Women joined the Norwegian section.

In her last years Cecilie Thoresen was suffering from endocarditis. She died in 1911 at the age of 53 years.

Afterlife

The 100th anniversary of Cecilie Thoresen's enrollment at the University of Kristiania was committed anywhere in Norway with hard lectures, other events, the publication of articles and a book publication. In several Norwegian cities (eg in Oslo and Trondheim ) today the streets are named after Cecilie Thoresen. In Sophus Lie Auditorium of the University of Oslo reminds a bronze wall relief by sculptor Kari Rolfsen them.

The eldest son of Cecilie Thoresen, Helge Krog is one of the most famous Norwegian dramatists of the 20th century.