Daughter of a lawyer, Anita Augspurg (1857 - 1943) was one of the foremost advocates of women's rights in Germany. The late nineteenth century saw the advancement of work unions, a woman's right to own property and socialist-driven reforms such as accident insurance and pensions.
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Anita Theodora Johanna Sophie Augspurg was born in the German kingdom of Hanover. At the time, Germany wasn't yet a unified country and consisted of various kingdoms, princedoms and autonomous regions. This would soon change.
Augspurg is known as a German jurist, actress, artist, writer, activist of the radical feminist movement and a pacifist. Her outspoken dedication made positive advances for women in Europe.
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After attending a private women's school up to 1873, Anita worked at her father's law firm until she reached the age of majority. It was rare for a woman to work outside the home in the 19th century.
Options were generally limited to teacher, nurse, servant, actress or prostitute. Nurses had no medical training but did the cleaning and domestic work at hospitals. Urban prostitutes had an average life span of four years due to violence and disease. One in five Victorians had syphilis. Servants were treated like chattel. Many people thought theater immoral, full of orgiastic excess. But, women were gradually rising above barriers and stereotypes.
By 1873, Chancellor Otto Bismarck had unified the country as the German Empire (1871 - 1918). Advances in science, technology, health and human rights moved forward radically. The future was optimistic as the young German Empire caught up with French, English and Dutch technology.
Hospitals first used antiseptic near the end of the 19th century, turning them houses of horror to hallowed halls of healing, and mental health treatment grew more compassionate. Change happened fast, and activists and entrepreneurs found opportunities to thrive.
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Anita passed tests to be a teacher, but she was a talented actress and also studied under Minona Frieb-Blumauer, a famous German actress and singer from Stuttgart. From 1881 - 1882 Augspurg apprenticed at the Meiningen Ensemble, Court Theater of Saxe-Meinigen, and took part in concert tours across Germany, the Netherlands, and Lithuania.
In 1887 she received an inheritance from her grandmother, making her financially independent. It was the same year old laws overturned and women were finally permitted to own money and property in their own names. Women had more freedom than ever before, but not without opposition.
Augspurg moved to Munich and opened a photography studio with a friend, Dutch-born Sophia Goudstikker, who had both Dutch and German citizenship. Sophia was the first single woman to obtain a royal license for photography.
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The studio, Hofatelier Elvira, became a meeting place for the avant-garde, intellectuals and activists. Many famous people including Isadora Duncan, Marie-Adélaïde, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg and Rainer Maria Rilke had their photographs taken there.
Anita and Sophia presented it as a woman-run business, wore short hair and trousers, and flouted traditional roles. They came under attack by anti-feminists, both men and woman, for their outrageous behavior and controversial opinions. The studio flourished.
In 1890, focused on activism and women's rights, Augspurg went to Zurich, Switzerland to obtain a law degree, as women still couldn't get one in Germany. In 1897 she was the first woman to earn her Doctor of Law in Germany - but not allowed to practice until 1922.
She wrote for the newspaper Die Frauenbewegung ("The Women's Movement"). She condemned gender discrimination and described marriage as a type of legalised prostitution. In 1896, she went to Berlin for the International Conference of Woman. There she met radical feminist Lida Gustava Heymann, who later became her life partner.
Passionate pacifists as well as women's suffrage activists, Augspurg and Heymann held illegal meetings in their Munich apartment during the First World War.
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Besides advocating women's rights they spoke out against colonial oppression, antisemitism and Nazism. During the Nazi takeover in 1933 they were in Switzerland and remained there, expecting reprisals in Germany.
After a brief exile in South America they returned to Switzerland and settled in Zürich. Heymann died in 1943 and Augspurg a few months later. Their forward thinking activism helped smooth the road for universal women's rights.
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