Martina Kramers | |
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| Born | 6 June 1863 Veur, Netherlands |
| Died | 15 October 1934 (aged 71) Apeldoorn, Netherlands |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Occupation | Suffragist |
Martina Kramers (1863-1934) was a Dutch suffragist who was a leader in the International Council of Women and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance as well as in the national feminist movement in the Netherlands. [1] In her various roles, Kramers was an active speaker, writer, and conference organizer for the causes she supported.
Martina Gezina Kramers was born in Veur on 6 June 1863. [2] Her father was the head of a Protestant boarding school, and as a result of growing up in an educational environment Kramers learned several languages as a child. Kramers' mother died in 1874. At 15, Kramers began studying at a teacher training school in Arnhem. [3] After completing the program, she returned to Rotterdam where she continued to live with her family.
Kramers' involvement with the women's rights movement in the Netherlands began when she joined the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht in 1894. [2] Together with Marie Rutgers-Hoitsema, she founded the Society for the Advancement of Women's Interests in 1895. Kramers translated Frances Swiney's book The awakening of women, or, Woman's part in evolution into Dutch. [4]
In 1898, Kramers helped organize the large, public National Exhibition on Women's Labor held in The Hague. [5] In the same year, Kramers successfully advocated for the creation of the Dutch National Council for Women, inspired by a lecture given by May Wright Sewall at the exhibition. [5] : 216 From 1899 to 1909, Kramers was a member of the board of the International Council of Women. [1] : xix She held the position of secretary at the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) from 1906 to 1911 and was the first editor of the organization's journal, Jus Suffragii , from 1904 to 1913. She held several lectures as a representative of the IWSA at the Université nouvelle in Belgium that sparked the creation of the Belgian Federation for Women's Suffrage in 1913. [6]
Kramers became a member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party in 1911. [3] In 1913, Kramers was asked by IWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt to give up her position as the journal's editor due to her perceived socialist politics and her controversial relationship with a married man. [7] [1] : 40
In addition to her suffragist work, Kramers was also active in the Dutch Neo-Malthusian movement, promoting the use of and public education about birth control. In 1910, Kramers took minutes, translated conference documents, and acted as interpreter at the Dutch Neo-Malthusian League's conference held in The Hague, attended by activists and political leaders including Samuel van Houten, Aletta Jacobs, and Alice Vickery. [8] Several of her letters and articles were published in the Margaret Sanger-led Birth Control Review . [9]
In 1918, Kramers moved to Apeldoorn and shifted her focus to social democratic politics. [2] In 1923, Kramers was elected to the Apeldoorn city council. Kramers, who in her life was also an Esperantist, gave lessons in the language to interested young people.
Kramers died in Apeldoorn on 15 October 1934. [3]
Vida Jane Mary Goldstein was an Australian suffragist and social reformer. She was one of four female candidates at the 1903 federal election, the first at which women were eligible to stand.
Aletta Henriëtte Jacobs was a Dutch physician and women's suffrage activist. As the first woman officially to attend a Dutch university, she became one of the first female physicians in the Netherlands. In 1882, she founded the world's first birth control clinic and was a leader in both the Dutch and international women's movements. She led campaigns aimed at deregulating prostitution, improving women's working conditions, promoting peace and calling for women's right to vote.
The International Alliance of Women is an international non-governmental organization that works to promote women's rights and gender equality. It was historically the main international organization that campaigned for women's suffrage. IAW stands for an inclusive, intersectional and progressive liberal feminism on the basis of human rights and liberal democracy, and has a liberal internationalist outlook. IAW's principles state that all genders are "born equally free [and are] equally entitled to the free exercise of their individual rights and liberty," that "women's rights are human rights" and that "human rights are universal, indivisible and interrelated."
Helen Bright Clark (1840–1927) was a British women's rights activist and suffragist. The daughter of a radical Member of Parliament, Clark was a prominent speaker for women's voting rights and at times a political realist who served as a mainstay of the 19th century suffrage movement in South West England. A liberal in all senses, Clark aided progress toward universal human brotherhood through her activities in organisations which assisted former slaves and aboriginal peoples.
The Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British suffragists at the end of 1914 as the first Christmas of the First World War approached. The Open Christmas Letter was written in acknowledgment of the mounting horror of modern war and as a direct response to letters written to American feminist Carrie Chapman Catt, the president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA), by a small group of German women's rights activists. Published in January 1915 in Jus Suffragii, the journal of the IWSA, the Open Christmas Letter was answered two months later by a group of 155 prominent German and Austrian women who were pacifists. The exchange of letters between women of nations at war helped promote the aims of peace, and helped prevent the fracturing of the unity which lay in the common goal they shared, suffrage for women.
Jessie Chrystal Macmillan was a suffragist, peace activist, barrister, feminist and the first female science graduate from the University of Edinburgh as well as that institution's first female honours graduate in mathematics. She was an activist for women's right to vote, and for other women's causes. She was the second woman to plead a case before the House of Lords, and was one of the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Wilhelmina Drucker was a Dutch politician and writer. One of the first Dutch feminists, she was also known under her pseudonyms Gipsy, Gitano, and E. Prezcier.
Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn was an American feminist social reformer and a leader of the suffrage movement in the United States. Hepburn served as president of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association before joining the National Woman's Party. In 1923 Hepburn formed the Connecticut Branch of the American Birth Control League with two of her friends, Mrs. George Day and Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett. She was the mother and namesake of actress Katharine Hepburn and the grandmother and namesake of actress Katharine Houghton.
Maria Wilhelmina Hendrika "Mietje" Hoitsema (1847–1934) was a Dutch feminist.
Marie Stritt was a German feminist and a leading force in the international and German women's suffrage movement. She helped worked towards woman's education and fought against state regulated prostitution. Stritt also worked for changes regarding divorce laws through the Woman's Legal Aid Society. She was a strong proponent of birth control and abortion.
Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger was a French campaigner for pronatalism, alcoholic abstinence, and feminism. She was the president of the French Union for Women's Suffrage movement. She married into the Schlumberger family and became a powerfully influential matriarch and the mother of several sons who achieved notability in their own right. An activist in international women's rights circles, Witt-Schlumberger was a leading suffragist at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. For her active involvement and service to the government, she was awarded the Croix of the French Legion of Honour in 1920.
Clara Gertrud Wichmann was a German–Dutch lawyer and anarchist feminist activist, who became a leading advocate of criminal justice reform and prison abolition in the Netherlands.
Nina Evans Allender was an American artist, cartoonist, and women's rights activist. She studied art in the United States and Europe with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. Allender worked as an organizer, speaker, and campaigner for women's suffrage and was the "official cartoonist" for the National Woman's Party's publications, creating what became known as the "Allender Girl."
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Rosette Susanna "Rosa" Manus was a Jewish Dutch pacifist and female suffragist involved in women's movements and anti-war movements, who was a victim of the Holocaust. She served as the President of the Society for Female Suffrage, the Vice President of the Dutch Association for Women's Interests and Equal Citizenship, and was one of the founding members of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) as well as its secretary. She firmly believed that women could work together across the world to bring peace. Although Manus was fairly well known in feminist circles in the 1920s and 1930s, she remains relatively unknown today. She was involved in feminist work for about thirty years during her lifetime and was known as a "feminist liberal internationalist."
Johanna Wilhelmina Antoinette Naber was a Dutch feminist, historian and author during the first feminist wave. She was one of the three founders of the International Archives for the Women's Movement (1935), now known as Atria Institute on gender equality and women's history, and was herself a prolific author of historical texts about influential women and the women's movement.
Women's suffrage began in Illinois began in the mid-1850s. The first women's suffrage group was formed in Earlville, Illinois, by the cousin of Susan B. Anthony, Susan Hoxie Richardson. After the Civil War, former abolitionist Mary Livermore organized the Illinois Woman Suffrage Association (IWSA), which would later be renamed the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (IESA). Frances Willard and other suffragists in the IESA worked to lobby various government entities for women's suffrage. In the 1870s, women were allowed to serve on school boards and were elected to that office. The first women to vote in Illinois were 15 women in Lombard, Illinois, led by Ellen A. Martin, who found a loophole in the law in 1891. Women were eventually allowed to vote for school offices in the 1890s. Women in Chicago and throughout Illinois fought for the right to vote based on the idea of no taxation without representation. They also continued to expand their efforts throughout the state. In 1913, women in Illinois were successful in gaining partial suffrage. They became the first women east of the Mississippi River to have the right to vote in presidential elections. Suffragists then worked to register women to vote. Both African-American and white suffragists registered women in huge numbers. In Chicago alone 200,000 women were registered to vote. After gaining partial suffrage, women in Illinois kept working towards full suffrage. The state became the first to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment, passing the ratification on June 10, 1919. The League of Women Voters (LWV) was announced in Chicago on February 14, 1920.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Illinois. Women's suffrage in Illinois began in the mid 1850s. The first women's suffrage group was created in 1855 in Earlville, Illinois by Susan Hoxie Richardson. The Illinois Woman Suffrage Association (IWSA), later renamed the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (IESA), was created by Mary Livermore in 1869. This group held annual conventions and petitioned various governmental bodies in Illinois for women's suffrage. On June 19, 1891, women gained the right to vote for school offices. However, it wasn't until 1913 that women saw expanded suffrage. That year women in Illinois were granted the right to vote for Presidential electors and various local offices. Suffragists continued to fight for full suffrage in the state. Finally, Illinois became the first state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on June 10, 1919. The League of Women Voters (LWV) was announced in Chicago on February 14, 1920.
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