1. Ellen Key was an early advocate of a child-centered approach to education and parenting, and was a suffragist.
23 Facts About Ellen Key
1. 2.
Ellen Key is best known for her book on education, which was translated into English in 1909 as The Century of the Child.
3.
Ellen Key was born at Sundsholm mansion in Smaland, Sweden, on 11 December 1849.
4.
Ellen Key's father was Emil Key, the founder of the Swedish Agrarian Party and a frequent contributor to the Swedish newspaper Aftonposten.
5.
Ellen Key's mother was Sophie Posse Key, who was born into an aristocratic family from the southernmost part of Skane County.
6.
Ellen Key cited reading by Camilla Collett and Henrik Ibsen's plays, Brand, and Peer Gynt as her childhood influences.
7.
Ellen Key's book gave her thoughts structure, helping to define her beliefs concerning the role of women as mothers and nurturers.
8.
Ellen Key hoped Feilitzen would leave his wife, as they did not share similar interests, but he refused.
9.
Ellen Key would do some biographical studies on George Eliot and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
10.
In 1883, Ellen Key began teaching at Anton Nystrom new school, the People's Institute, which was founded in 1880.
11.
Ellen Key helped organize "The Twelves", a group of twelve upper class ladies who sponsored and organized social functions to help improve working class ladies' manners.
12.
Ellen Key spoke at Curman's "Curman receptions", salons held several times a year which featured a number of the intellectuals of the day.
13.
Ellen Key was critical of the piece for having one woman's attempt to combine marriage, motherhood, and a career as an artist.
14.
Ellen Key grew up in an atmosphere of liberalism, and throughout the 1870s her political beliefs were radically liberal.
15.
Ellen Key was republican-minded, with the idea of freedom holding vast importance for her.
16.
Ellen Key was raised in a rigid Christian household, but while growing up she started questioning her views.
17.
The principle of evolution, in which Ellen Key had come to believe, was to have an influence on her educational views.
18.
Ellen Key would write about Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Carl Jonas Love Almqvist.
19.
Ellen Key started her career as a writer in the mid-1870s with literary essays.
20.
Ellen Key became known to a large public through the pamphlet On Freedom of Speech and Publishing.
21.
Several of Ellen Key's writings were translated into English by Mamah Borthwick, during the period of her affair with Frank Lloyd Wright.
22.
Ellen Key has inspired writers such as Selma Lagerlof, Marika Stjernstedt, Waka Yamada and Elin Wagner.
23.
Ellen Key maintained that motherhood is so crucial to society that the government, rather than their husbands, should support mothers and their children.