Hedwig Dohm’s Die Mütter and Die neue Mutter: Expanding the Socio-Cultural Concept of Maternity in the Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth Century.

Hedwig Dohm (1831-1919) is a writer of fiction and the major theoretician of women’s rights at the turn of the century. Dohm strove to expand the narrow biological determinism of the mother role. My talk will illustrate the visionary quality of Dohm’s discourse as well as place her contributions within the context of nineteenth-century female involvement in maternal discourse. The discourse on maternity has resulted not only in women’s professional involvement pedagogical discourse and practice, but has enabled women to dominate in this field as in no other area of public involvement.