Louise Otto-Peters
Louise Otto - Peters ( Luise Otto - Peters, pseudonym Otto Stern, born March 26, 1819 in Meissen, † March 13, 1895 in Leipzig) was the youngest of the five daughters of the Court Director Fürchtegott Wilhelm Otto and his wife Charlotte, née Matthäi, born in Meissen. As a socially critical writer, she co-founded the German bourgeois women's movement.
Life
Louise Otto grew up in her father's bourgeois wealthy household, who was not only court director, but sometimes also a senator. After several family deaths Louise Otto was an orphan at age 17. Your livelihood, she contested mainly from the inheritance and their writing, rather later work as a journalist.
As a young woman she had met during a visit in 1841 with her sister in Oederan the oppressive living conditions of the working class families in the prosperous industrial town. In 1842 she published her first novel Louis the waiter and 1846 it clearly socially - critical romantic castle and factory, in which she described the bitter plight of industrial workers and their rebellion. The experience of the bloody suppression of an uprising in Leipzig was the initial spark to stand up for the rights and for the support of the workers, but also their wives.
In newspapers they published articles, initially under the pseudonym " Otto Stern " or " a Saxon girl ". When in 1843 Robert Blum in the Saxon homeland leaves the question of the political status of women posed, Louise Otto replied in the same journal: "The participation of women in the interests of the state is not a right but a duty. "
Through their publications Louise Otto had become such a respected by the public, but also the authorities person. Your 1847 published collection of poems, Songs of a German girl was wearing it the name " Lark Spring of Nations ", because their verses were inspired by the atmosphere of the pre-March period. They brought her recognition in democratic and labor circles.
Both broad agreement as well as sharp contradiction resolved in 1848 their address to the revered minister Oberlander in Dresden, called the Otto: "Gentlemen! In the name of morality, in the name of his country, in the name of humanity, I urge you to forget in the organization of work that women do not " It was about the appointment of a committee on economic matters in Saxony proposals in particular the organization of work! should develop. It had therefore to provide for the organization of women's work, among other reasons, in order not to drive women into prostitution. Louise Otto's request to nominate women for the vacant worker Commission was, at that time felt almost as a scandal. Nevertheless, you asked for suggestions on this issue. She organized meetings to raise awareness of the situation of the workers, was co-founder of the fatherland and the association was in frequent communication with the increasingly organizing workers and workers.
During the March Revolution in 1849 the editor of the newspaper founded by her women under the motto " The realm of freedom I competition citizens ". This intensified the attention of the Saxon censors. This was followed by house searches, interrogations, resolution of co-founded by her servants and workers associations due to the Prussian Association Act of 1851, prohibiting the women's newspaper in 1850 due to a specially modified Saxon press law ( Lex Otto ), the women said the publication of newspapers. She dodged the editors to Gera before 1852 a definitive ban was carried out by a similar Prussian law.
With the writer August Peters, who had to serve as a participant in the revolutionary struggle of 1848/49 seven years imprisonment, she became engaged in prison. Following the adoption of his remaining sentence in 1856 1858, the wedding took, after which the couple lived from 1859 in Leipzig. She worked in libraries in Dresden and Leipzig, wrote articles, reviews and novels and was with her husband until his death in 1864, the Central German newspaper people out their feature she directed. Among other things, she wrote the text of the opera Theodor Körner, which the composer Wendelin Weißheimer had specially composed for the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig.
1865 founded Louise Otto-Peters along with Auguste Schmidt, Ottilie von Steyber and Henriette Goldschmidt Leipzig Women's Education Association and appointed in the same year, the first German women's conference in Leipzig. She was also co-founder of the General German Women's Association (ADF ), which she served as first chairman during the next three decades. She also worked in the editorial department of the newspaper club with new tracks. The resulting evolving moderate feminist magazine The woman lawyer was later continued by Elsbeth Krukenberg Conze.
From their suggestions went out to address workers not only as a target group charitable and educational activity, but also as fellow activists for women's rights. The General German Women's Association business including a " Sunday School ", a training school for girls and an eating house and organized evening entertainment for women.
Honors
In Leipzig remember a monument in Rosental, Louise Otto - Peters Square, Louise Otto-Peters Avenue and a plaque in the cross- road for their house since 1868, in Halle ( Saale) in Freiburg im Breisgau each Louise Otto Peters street and in Hamburg- Bergedorf the Luise- Otto Peter's way to it. In Annaberg -Buchholz senior living bears her name. In addition, several secondary schools were named after her, the Leipzig " Louise Otto-Peters Company " shall maintain an educational offerings, the memory of the writer. Her grave stone is obtained at the Leipzig Old St. John's Cemetery.
Monument in Leipzig Rosental
Commemorative stamp in 1974
Grave stone of Louise Otto-Peters and her husband on the Old St. John's Cemetery
Writings
- Louis the waiter, Meissen 1842
- Palace and factory. Novel. 1846 ( censored) ( Vol. 1 digitized and full text archive in the German text, 2 vol digitized and full text archive in the German text; 3 Bd digitized and full text archive in the German text ); first complete edition LKG, Leipzig 1996 (edited and with an afterword by Johanna Ludwig) (Full text at Zeno )
- The right of women to purchase. Looks at the lives of women of today. 1866; Leipzig University -Verlag, Leipzig, 1997, ISBN 3-931922-69-3
- Women living in the German Reich. Memories from the past with regard to present and future. Schaefer, Leipzig 1876; Reprints: hut man, Paderborn, 1988, ISBN 3-927029-02-5; Beas - Edition, location 1997, ISBN 3-932405-02-1
- Course of My Life. Poems from 5 decades. Schaefer, Leipzig 1893
- Spiritual lords and princes in Germany until the secularization in 1803. Publisher of Heinrich Matthes, Leipzig, 1869.