Helene Lange

German feminist

• Born: April 9, 1848
• Birthplace: Oldenburg (now in Germany)
• Died: May 13, 1930
• Place of death: Berlin, Germany

Lange was a teacher and writer who became one of the central activists for the women’s movement in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century. Her speeches, polemic essays, and articles testify to her fight for improved women’s education and for women’s rights. She became the central spokesperson for the General German Women’s Association and represented a moderate feminist position advocating gender difference.

Early Life

Helene Lange (lahng-eh) was the second of three children and only daughter of a German merchant named Carl Theodor Lange and his wife, Johanne Sophie Amalie. At the age of seven, Helene lost her mother; her father died when she was sixteen. As was customary for girls of her social status, she first attended elementary school before attending a local private school for bourgeois girls. After passing her exam in 1864—the same year in which her father died—she spent one year in the household of a southern German pastor who had known her father. It was in this situation that Helene first realized women’s disadvantaged position, as she was not allowed to participate in the men’s political and philosophical discussions. In her later memoirs, she described that period as the birth of her feminist awareness.

In what Lange called the “time of waiting” for young women—after finishing school and before getting married—she experienced boredom and further developed her growing awareness of the inequality of women and men. She would never marry and soon started to teach children in her home. Eventually, she obtained a position in a girls’ boarding school in Alsace. She was forced to give up this position, however, because of a severe eye condition and migraine headaches that would afflict her throughout the rest of her life. In 1871, after she came of age, she moved to Berlin, where she passed the teachers’ examination that her guardian had previously refused to allow her to take.

Life’s Work

In addition to giving lessons at private girls’ schools in Berlin, Lange learned both Latin and Greek and read history and philosophy, together with other women. In 1876, when she was twenty-eight years old, she founded a women teachers’ training college, in which she worked until 1891. She was convinced that girls should be educated primarily by women, and that the teachers themselves should receive better training. At that time, the education of bourgeois girls—in contrast with that of boys—was not designed to prepare them for professions or entrance to universities but to prepare them for their roles as wives, mothers, and teachers of their own children. Lange accepted these prescribed roles for women but regarded the educational system as incapable of training women to meet even those limited objectives.

In 1889, Lange opened the Realkurse (which she later extended into Gymnasialkurse)—courses that were designed to offer an extended educational program for young women. These courses prepared graduates of the higher girls’ schools for useful employment and also for the examination that led to Swiss universities, which, unlike German universities, were already open to women at that time. With those preparatory courses and her educational politics, Lange also paved the way for women’s access to university education in Germany—a milestone in women’s emancipation.

Lange drew attention to her ideas by raising her voice courageously. Her rhetorical brilliance and her polemical directness later made her a famous and well-respected spokesperson for the moderate wing of the women’s movement. Most late nineteenth century feminists were members of the middle class and demanded improved rights for women that were based on essential differences between the sexes, rather than on sexual equality. According to the conservative and moderate representatives of the women’s movement, a woman’s proper sphere was the home; hence, they petitioned for more autonomy for women in a separate sphere. However, Lange’s work also resulted in better educational and career opportunities that contributed significantly to the improvement of women’s situation in German society. Lange did not live quite long enough to witness the Nazi attempt to force German women back to their hearths during the 1930’s.

The bourgeois German women’s movement of the 1870’s and 1880’s, represented by the General German Women’s Association founded in 1865, concentrated on two issues: improving women’s education and admitting women to the medical profession. Petitions to the government were an important tool in feminist politics. Lange played a prominent role in the 1888 petition as the author of the so-called “Yellow Brochure” (Gelbe Broschüre), a tract demanding a more important role for women teachers in the upper grades of girls’ schools, as well as the training of the women who were necessary for such teaching. Despite its moderate demands, the tract aroused hostile reactions, and the petition was rejected at the time.

Lange became famous as the leader of the General German Women’s Association from 1902 to 1923. She not only worked in practical ways to advance the situation of women but also published theoretical works commenting on the women’s movement in Europe and in America and reflecting on the aims of the German movement. With Gertrud Bäumer, she edited the multivolume Handbook of the Women’s Movement . In 1893, she founded the monthly journal Die Frau (woman), which discussed the political, social, and economic situation of women in Germany. Times of Struggle (1928) was a collection of her essays and speeches spanning four decades; it best illustrates the broad range of topics that Lange addressed as a prolific writer and publisher.

Lange’s private life was closely intertwined with her political work. The feminist teacher, activist, and writer Gertrud Bäumer was her life partner and close colleague from 1899 until her death. Lange’s close friendship with the twenty-five-year-younger Bäumer was often described as a mother-daughter relationship. After Lange’s death in May, 1930, following a long illness, Bäumer continued her political work through the remaining twenty years of her own life.

During the 1920’s, Lange received many public honors, including honorary citizenship of Oldenburg and an honorary doctorate from the University of Tübingen. These honors testify to her great importance for the women’s movement and at the same time to her acceptance within society despite the predominantly conservative political circumstances.

Significance

Through the first years of the twenty-first century, none of Helene Lange’s work had been translated into English. Moreover, Germany’s late nineteenth century feminist movement had gained only limited attention outside Germany. This lack of interest in Lange is probably due to the conservative position on gender difference, which distinguishes the German movement from the movements in England and the United States. However, to understand fully the impact of Lange’s arguments, her work must be read within the context of imperial Germany. In this conservative context, her argumentation becomes more effective because it helped to reform politics, albeit slowly, in a positive way for women. Hence, her political contribution to German feminism is uncontested today and most of her works are—at least in German—reprinted and easily accessible.

Scholarly attention has focused also on Lange’s private life and especially her close friendship with Gertrud Bäumer. Instead of being subordinated to a husband who legally possessed many rights to his wife’s person, Lange and Bäumer each found in each other a life partner who understood and supported her professional activities. Living a life of shared intellectual work and forging a relationship between equals formed the crucial prerequisites for Helene Lange’s feminist writing and activism.

Bibliography

Albisetti, James C. “Could Separate Be Equal? Helene Lange and Women’s Education in Imperial Germany.” History of Education Quarterly 22, no. 3 (1982): 301-317. Analyzes traditions and developments in German education and traces Helene Lange’s crucial role in improving women’s educational opportunities.

Evans, Richard J. The Feminist Movement in Germany, 1894-1933. London: Sage Publications, 1976. Although in some respects superseded by newer research, this book remains the only study in English that provides the political background and an overview of the development of the German women’s movement. It presents activists such as Lange against the backdrop of German liberalism from the fall of Otto von Bismarck to the advent of Adolf Hitler.

Göttert, Margit. Macht und Eros: Frauenbeziehungen und weibliche Kultur um 1900: Eine neue Perspektive auf Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer. Königstein, Germany: Ulrike Helmer Verlag, 2000. Focuses on the political and private relationship between Lange and Bäumer and situates their lives within the women’s movement and a culture of women’s friendship and intellectual community.

Hopf, Caroline, and Eva Matthes, eds. Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer: Kommentierte Texte. 2 vols. Bad Heilbrunn, Germany: Julius Klinkhardt, 2001, 2003. These collections provide easy and comprehensive access to the most important essays on feminist politics and education by Lange and Bäumer. They offer excellent comments on the main political topics and texts.

Schaser, Angelika. Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer: Eine politische Lebensgemeinschaft. Cologne, Germany: Böhlau, 2000. Analyzes the relationship between Lange and Bäumer and provides detailed research on their works and positions as well as biographies. Contains a comprehensive bibliography.