15 Facts About Henriette Goldschmidt

Henriette Goldschmidt was a German Jewish feminist, pedagogist and social worker.

Henriette Goldschmidt was one of the founders of the German Women's Association and worked to improve women's rights to access education and employment.

Henriette Goldschmidt's mother died when she was five years old, and her father remarried an illiterate woman, who was not a nurturing maternal figure.

Henriette Goldschmidt supplemented her meager education by reading German classics and the newspaper, Breslauer Zeitung, which aroused her early interest in politics.

Henriette Goldschmidt equated the move to the university town of Leipzig with an awakening to freedom and humanitarian spirit.

Henriette Goldschmidt quickly became involved in the German-Jewish community and was exposed to the ideas of Friedrich Frobel, founder of the early-childhood kindergarten education system.

Henriette Goldschmidt initially been hesitant about becoming a board member of the group, as the legal statutes at that time forbade women voting in volunteer organizations, but with her husband's encouragement, she became an active member.

In 1867, Henriette Goldschmidt organized petition drives for submission to the Reichstag in support of women's rights to access education and employment and she was a signatory to the petition to protect illegitimate children.

Henriette Goldschmidt proposed that women be participants in their communities, because women would lend a sensitivity to dealing with culturally divisive issues.

In 1871, Henriette Goldschmidt founded the Society for Family Education and for People's Welfare, with the goal of training kindergarten teachers in the Frobel method.

Henriette Goldschmidt served as president of the organization for over four decades.

Henriette Goldschmidt did not give up and continued writing and giving speeches on the need for kindergartens and women's education.

In 1906, women were finally admitted to university study in Germany, but the coursework did not prepare women to meet their societal obligations, as Henriette Goldschmidt believed that the natural calling of woman was to transform society through their cultural involvement.

Henriette Goldschmidt strove to fill a gap and not compete with university studies and in 1911, Goldschmidt achieved the high point of her career, with the establishment of the first institution in Germany offering higher education specifically to women.

Henriette Goldschmidt died on 30 January 1920 in Leipzig, Weimar Republic and was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery of Leipzig.