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Aletta Jacobs

1854-1929

As this series of articles on the long nineteenth-century quest for woman suffrage nears its end, it seems fitting that we return to the international nature of feminism.

Aletta Jacobs did not set out to change the world, but she did. The first Dutch woman to graduate from a university and the first female Dutch medical doctor, Jacobs had an international reputation by the time she was 30 years of age. Shortly after beginning her medical practice, she began to challenge tradition and became famous for adapting the "Mensinga pessary" into an effective contraceptive device, known today as the diaphragm and for opening the first contraceptive clinic in the world.

A staunch advocate for the rights of all women, Jacobs worked on the Netherlands' "moral purity" campaign, worked to get stools for shopgirls, and was active in the peace movement. Possibly her greatest contribution, certainly the movement to which she devoted the most time, was to the Dutch and international woman suffrage movements.

Meeting all of the stated qualifications to vote, in 1883 Jacobs attempted unsuccessfully to register to vote and appealed the decision to the Dutch Supreme Court. She lost the case and began a small campaign to educate the citizens of The Netherlands about the necessity of the vote for women. In response to her campaign, in 1887 (!!) the Dutch Parliament, to its shame, added the word "male" to the list of voting qualifications. Undaunted, in 1893 Jacobs, unable to attend due to complications of a recent pregnancy, sent a message of support to the founding meeting of the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (VVVK, Woman Suffrage Alliance). She took part in the committee drafted to form a constitution for the new society. In 1895 she was elected president of the Amsterdam section of the VVVK and in 1903 she was elected president of the whole VVVK. Under Jacobs' leadership, the Dutch VVVK followed the model of the NAWSA under the direction of SB Anthony, linking as many woman's organizations together in pursuit of one goal and one goal only: woman suffrage. During this time, Jacobs also translated Charolette Perkins Gilman's Women and Economics into Dutch.

By 1902, activists in international feminism realized that a new international organization devoted solely to woman suffrage was needed. Jacobs was one of the women to help found the new International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA). The IWSA became official in 1904 with members representing eight founding nations: US, Britain, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, and Germany. By 1920, the IWSA had grown to represent 30 nations. In 1926 the IWSA name changed its name to International Alliance of Women, a name under which it still functions. The Alliance held biennial international Congresses, published a monthly journal, Jus Suffragii, and ran an international Information Bureau. The publicity which the new organization generated helped women around the world win the right to vote.

In 1906, Jacobs and Carrie Chapman Catt went on a tour of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Central Europe to spread the feminist and suffragist messages. They visited Prague (Czechoslovakia, later Czech Republic); Budapest, Hungry; and Vienna, Austria, helping to establish women's rights organizations and aiding existing woman's rights organizations along the way. Often Jacobs, who spoke the dominant language of Austro-Hungarian Empire, German, could express ideas that would have been of dubious legality if spoken by an Austrian citizen.

Between 1911 and 1913 Jacobs and Carrie Chapman Catt went on a round-the-world tour to study customs and laws as they apply to women and to help women organize themselves to fight for their own rights. They visited South Africa, many ports along the eastern coast of Africa, Port Said, Palestine (including Jerusalem and Beirut), Syria, Egypt, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, Burma, Penang, Singapore, Sumatra, Java and the Dutch East Indies, The Philippines, China, and Japan. In Japan, Jacobs and Catt parted company; Jacobs to return to the Netherlands via China (including Beijing) and Russia, and Catt to return to the US via Honolulu.

World War I, fought "to make the world safe for democracy," brought a halt to most active suffrage work. But after the war, women were enfranchised in many of the old democracies as well as in the new countries formed from the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian Empires. As can be seen from the table to the right which summarizes the years in which woman suffrage was granted, the US was far from the leader in this effort.

Today's document is a letter from Jacobs to fellow suffragist Hungarian Rosika Schwimmer. Although it does not have the ringing rhetoric of other documents, this informal letter demonstrates the international nature of the woman suffrage movements by the early 20th century. In one short page, Jacobs refers to six women's suffrage activists in four countries: the addressee, Rosika Schwimmer (Hungry); Charlotte Norrie (Denmark); Martina Kramers (The Netherlands); Charolette Perkins Gilman (US); Vilma Glücklich (Hungry); and Carrie Chapman Catt (US) (see Letter 4. Aletta Jacobs to Rosika Schwimmer' from Mineke Bosch and Annemarie Kloosterman (eds.), Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902 – 1942 pp. 56- 58.)

Amsterdam, 16 February 1905

My dear Rosika,

I was pleased with your letter, you have achieved a great deal in a short time. I have already written to Mrs. Catt about the invitation, you should get it. The aristocratic women, and those who are pleased to pass as such, are the same everywhere. In Denmark, Miss Norrie1 has been expelled, the woman who got everything done there and who managed the entire Danish Council, and in my absence the same was done to my good Martina Kramers.2 I have used all of my influence to bring her back in, but whether I shall succeed, I doubt it. After all, I am not liked much myself, but so far they have not been able to manage without me.

Mrs. [Charlotte] Perkins Gilman3 is coming over on 5 March, and will stay with me until 9 March. Of course she was to give a lecture here, but that was a difficult matter. Not a single association wanted to invite her, not even my own Women Suffrage Association. Then I said, fine, there is not to be a quarrel, but Mrs. P.G. will speak here. I went to four aristocratic ladies, two of them are friends of mine. I knew that they had read her books, and together we formed a committee. I wrote an article in one of our daily newspapers and even before we have announced the exact date and place, we have sold so many tickets that in the end it turns out a good speculation.

I do not believe that she can come to Austria and Hungary now, since she has already booked her return passage, she wants to be back in New York before Easter. But you can try, in Holland her address is with me.

Of course I remember Vilma Glücklich,4 she is not the kind of person one would ever forget. I liked her very much. She sent me the printed matter, but I cannot read it, it is all Hungarian, are there perhaps German articles about the new association? If you want to write to Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, her address is: 205 W 57th Str. New York, but it can wait, I am sure she will write to you.

And now for your preference for morphia! Dear child, it is something completely normal. I am sure you do not want to believe me, women never want to, but it is very natural and always happens to unmarried women who are over 23 or 25 years of age. It is entirely physical. I should like to talk with you because I cannot write it in such a way that you will understand me without misinterpreting, but this is something you have in common with all women, only in coarse and less sensitive women it expresses itself differently. I have also experienced it for many years, it is because we live too respectably. It is the same with men when they lead a clean life. Which is why they don't. Very sensible; as long as they do not need prostitutes or make prostitutes.

I hope that your mama will soon be better and that you will not have financial worries. That is too bad! The other will pass, but very slowly. My good husband has not been quite well since our return from America. He complains continually about nervous disturbances and has not yet been able to participate in public life. I hope it will pass, but now and then I am afraid it will be chronic. I for myself am completely involved again in all the feminist work, and feel very well. Receive the kindest regards from the both of us,

Yours, lovingly,

Aletta H. Jacobs

1. Charlotte Norrie was a delegate to the founding congress of the IWSA in Berlin (Peck 1944,140).
2 Marrina G. Kramers was a board member of the Dutch Council of Women from its foundation in 1898, resigning in 1904. She remained a board member of the ICW until 1909.
3 Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1936), feminist philosopher and publicist, met Aletta Jacobs at the 1899 congress of the ICW in London. Jacobs then promised that she would translate Gilman's Women and Economics (1899). On March 7, 1905, Gilman gave a lecture entitled "The Home and the World" in Amsterdam.
4 In 1896 Vilma Glücklich became the first woman in Hungary to be admitted to the university. She studied physics and mathematics. In 1902 she became a member of the board of the National Association of Women Office Workers. In 1904, with Rosika Schwimmer, she founded the Hungarian Feminist Association, which campaigned for woman suffrage. In 1915 she headed the Hungarian delegation to the international women's congress at The Hague. In 1919 she was present at the Zurich conference, where the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was founded. From 1922 to 1925 she worked for the WILPF in Geneva.

References:

Aletta Jacobs, Harriet Feinberg (ed.), Annie Wright (trans.) , Harriet Pass Freidenreich (Historical Afterword), Harriet Feinberg (Literary Afterword) Memoirs: My Life as an International Leader in Health, Suffrage, and Peace [New York: Feminist Press, 1996]

Mineke Bosch and Annemarie Kloosterman (eds.), Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902 – 1942 [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990] The Dutch title for this book was Lieve Dr. Jacobs (Dear Dr. Jacobs). The letters pertain mostly to letters written to and by Aletta Jacobs.

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last updated February 2003