Reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary movements which reject those old ideals, in that the ideas are often grounded in liberalism, although they may be rooted in socialist or religious concepts. Some rely on personal transformation; others rely on small collectives, such as Mahatma Gandhi's spinning wheel and the self-sustaining village economy, as a mode of social change. Reactionary movements, which can arise against any of these, attempt to put things back the way they were before any successes the new reform movement(s) enjoyed, or to prevent any such successes.
Jewish emancipation was the process in various nations in Europe of eliminating Jewish disabilities, e.g. Jewish quotas, to which European Jews were then subject, and the recognition of Jews as entitled to equality and citizenship rights. It included efforts within the community to integrate into their societies as citizens. It occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century.
Marianne Weber was a German sociologist, women's rights activist and the wife of Max Weber.
First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on securing women's right to vote. The term is often used synonymously with the kind of feminism espoused by the liberal women's rights movement with roots in the first wave, with organizations such as the International Alliance of Women and its affiliates. This feminist movement still focuses on equality from a mainly legal perspective.
Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights.
Helene Stöcker was a German feminist, pacifist and gender activist. She successfully campaigned to keep same sex relationships between women legal, but she was unsuccessful in her campaign to legalise abortion. She was a pacifist in Germany and joined the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft. As war emerged, she fled to Norway. As Norway was invaded, she moved to Japan and emigrated to America in 1942.
Gertrud Bäumer was a German politician who actively participated in the German civil rights feminist movement. She was also a writer, and contributed to Friedrich Naumann's paper Die Hilfe. From 1898, Bäumer lived and worked together with the German feminist and politician Helene Lange.
The Women's Franchise League was a British organisation created by the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst together with her husband Richard and others in 1889, fourteen years before the creation of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903. The President of the organisation in 1889 was Harriet McIlquham. In 1895 the committee who met in Aberystwyth were Ursula Mellor Bright, Mrs Behrens, Esther? Bright, Herbert Burrows, Dr Clark MP, Mrs Hunter of Matlock Bank, Jane Brownlow, Mrs E. James, H.N.Mozley, Alice Cliff Scatcherd, Countess Gertrude Guillaume-Schack, Jane Cobden Unwin and Dr and Mrs Pankhurst.
Auguste Schmidt, full name, Friederike Wilhelmine Auguste Schmidt, (3 August 1833, Breslau, then Germany now Poland – 10 June 1902, Leipzig, Germany) was a pioneering German feminist, educator, journalist and women's rights activist.
Franziska Tiburtius was a German physician and advocate for women's education.
Feminism in Germany as a modern movement began during the Wilhelmine period (1888–1918) with individual women and women's rights groups pressuring a range of traditional institutions, from universities to government, to open their doors to women. This movement culminated in women's suffrage in 1919. Later waves of feminist activists pushed to expand women's rights.
Marguerite Bertsch was an American screenwriter and film director who worked in the early days of film. Her 1917 text How to Write for Moving Pictures: A Manual of Instruction and Information reflected and influenced the screenwriters of the era. In the early days of film it was not uncommon for "scenario writers" to be women and she was among those who, beginning in 1916, also directed films. However, she would later be called one of the "forgotten women" of silent film as the non-acting women of early film largely became obscure. Prints of two films that Bertsch had worked on as a screenwriter were rediscovered in the Netherlands, at the Nederlands Filmmuseum. These newly discovered films, The Diver and The Troublesome Step-Daughter, and the 1914 film A Florida Enchantment, are currently the only films from Bertsch's career that have been recovered. The rest are presumed to be lost.
Anna Pappritz was a German writer and suffragist. She was one of the leaders of the German branch of the International Abolitionist Federation, which sought to abolish regulations and criminal laws directed against prostitutes, and proposed instead to eliminate prostitution through moral education of young men and women, and through providing alternative ways by which young women could earn a living. Pappritz became one of the most prominent members of the women's movement in Germany.
Friedrich Lange was a German journalist and political activist with the Völkisch movement. Seeking to move beyond existing romantic nationalism, Lange sought to build a wider nationalist ideology on the German political right by marrying anti-Semitism to other economic and social issues. He would prove an influential figure for groups that followed.
Jeanette Schwerin was a German women's rights activist and a social work pioneer.
Marie Munk was a German-American lawyer. She was the first female judge in Germany. She made efforts to obtain reforms in the family law, concerning equal spousal responsibilities, trouble-free divorce procedures, equal division of property in case of divorce, equal citizenship rights for women.
Frazelia Campbell was an American classicist, linguist and teacher. She was featured in the "12 Black Classicists" travelling exhibition celebrating the achievements of African Americans working in Classical education.
Maria Schmitz was a German teacher, a persistent campaigner for women's education, and a politician of the Catholic Centre Party. She served as a member of the Weimar National Assembly ("pre-parliament"), convened to agree a post-imperial German constitution, during 1919/1920.
Ulla Wolff-Frankfurter, also known by the pen names Ulla Frank and Ulrich Frank, was a German Jewish playwright, novelist, and journalist.
Ella Mensch was a German writer, journalist, teacher, feminist and editor. In 1886 she became one of the first German women to earn a doctorate in German Literature from the University of Zurich along with Marie Nowack. She was associated with the German Female Teacher's Association. She also served as the editor of a women's magazine, Frauen-Rundschau.
