31 Facts About Adele Zay

Adele Zay was a Transylvanian teacher, feminist and pedagogue.

Adele Zay's family were part of the German-speaking community of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Adele Zay led the school from 1884 to 1927, becoming its official director in 1922.

Simultaneously with her relocation to Kronstadt, Adele Zay joined the General Women's Association of the Transylvanian Evangelical Church and became one of the leaders in pressing for women's rights.

Adele Zay successfully agitated for kindergarten and handicraft teachers to be recognized as educators and entitled to pensions.

Adele Zay lobbied for the teaching profession to be opened to women, which was accomplished in 1901, and for a women's normal school to be established, which occurred in 1903.

Adele Zay wrote books on the theory of child education which were distributed throughout Hungary and Germany and used as training texts until World War II.

Adele Zay founded the Freie Sachsische Frauenbund in 1920 as an umbrella organization to help women agitate for socio-political rights from the Kingdom of Romania, under whose jurisdiction Transylvania fell after the conclusion of World War I In the 1920s, she served as a member of parliament and a member of the District Committee for the People's Council of Burzenland.

Adele Zay remained active in educational and political movements until her death in 1928.

Adele Zay was born on leap day 1848 in Hermannstadt, in the Principality of Transylvania, Austrian Empire to Rosa and Daniel Adolf Zay.

Adele Zay's family was Transylvanian-Saxon, part of the ethnically-German, Lutheran population which had been invited by the Hungarian king to settle in Transylvania from the 12th century.

Adele Zay was the fourth daughter in the family and had a younger brother, Gustav Adolf "Adolf", who would become a lawyer and Hungarian parliamentarian.

Adele Zay's father was High Court Judge for the regional court, but he died shortly after Adolf's birth in 1850.

Adele Zay left his wife only a small pension, which was inadequate for educating her children.

Adele Zay, who aspired to become a teacher, attended the Protestant girls' school and supplemented her education with private lessons in languages and natural sciences.

In 1875, wanting to further her education, Adele Zay went to Vienna and took a training seminar with Friedrich Dittes, a school reformer and advocate of the Frobel method.

Adele Zay continued teaching and worked as an administrator at the Kemendy Institute until 1884, when the presbyterium of the Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession invited her to teach in their newly established normal school for training kindergarten teachers.

Adele Zay pointed out that in 1887 a proposal for hiring women teachers had been rejected based on the rationale that the Church would have to open and operate a normal school to train them.

At the 1889 National Exhibition for Infant Education in Budapest, Adele Zay was honored with a citation for her work while the courses she taught at the school won the gold prize.

In 1892, the school was officially accredited by the state and two years later Adele Zay designed a three-month long continuing education course to prepare caretakers for rural children, while their parents were engaged in planting and harvesting.

In 1896, Adele Zay published Theorie und Praxis der Kleinkindererziehung, a textbook which expressed the importance of the kindergarten in children's social development.

Adele Zay instructed teachers to allow children to learn from supervised activity and observation, noting that playing with each other stimulated their development as members of their community.

In 1898, Adele Zay published a second book, Hilfsbuchlein zur Heranbildung von Leiterinnen von Sommerbewahranstalten, giving practical advice for teachers to organize summer activities for children to continue their socialization.

Adele Zay began to agitate for changes in child labor laws, called for the suppression of national rhetoric in publications and speeches, and championed the cause of equality, including suffrage for women.

Adele Zay led the umbrella organization until 1925, when she was succeeded by Lotte Binder.

Adele Zay was officially named director of the KBA-AB in 1922, holding the post until she retired in 1927.

In 1924, Adele Zay implemented changes to incorporate the new cultural policies required by the Romanian state, and the following year she was elected President of the Women's League.

Adele Zay died on 29 December 1928 in Kronstadt, following a short illness caused by a heart attack.

Adele Zay was the first woman to lie in state at the Black Church there, before being buried according to her wishes at the Hermannstadt Town Cemetery.

Adele Zay is remembered for her contributions to professionalize teaching, for establishing kindergartens in Transylvania based upon Frobel's principles, and for her efforts to empower women.

The Free Saxon Women's League, founded by Adele Zay, was renamed the German-Saxon Federation of Women in 1930.