{{Short description|German feminist and educator (1833–1902)}} thumb|150px|Auguste Schmidt in {{circa|1880}}
'''Auguste Schmidt''', full name '''Friederike Wilhelmine Auguste Schmidt''' (3 August 1833 – 10 June 1902) was a German pioneering feminist, educator, journalist and women's rights activist.
==Life== Schmidt was born on 3 August 1833 in Breslau, German Empire (now Wrocław, Poland). She was the daughter of Prussian army artillery lieutenant Friedrich Schmidt and his wife Emilie (born Schöps). In 1842, the family moved from Breslau to Poznań where from 1848 to 1850 she studied in Luisenschule to be a teacher.<ref name="Dhm">{{cite web |url=http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/SchmidtAuguste/index.html|title=Auguste Schmidt|access-date=2008-01-15 |work=LeMo- Timeline of her life at the Live Online Virtual Museum|publisher=Deutsches Historiches Museum|language=de| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080114011601/http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/SchmidtAuguste/index.html| archive-date= 14 January 2008 | url-status= live}} ([https://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dhm.de%2Flemo%2Fhtml%2Fbiografien%2FSchmidtAuguste%2Findex.html+&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8 Translation]) Accessed January 2008</ref>
Between 1850 and 1855, she worked as a private teacher for a Polish family, and later at a private school in Upper Rybnik.<ref name="Dhm"/> From 1855 to 1860, she was teacher at the Maria Magdalena municipal school in Breslau.<ref name="Dhm"/> In 1861 she moved to Leipzig to become the Director of the Leipzig "''Latzelschen höheren Privattöchterschule''", a girls' private school.<ref name="Dhm"/>
From 1862, she was teacher of literature and aesthetics at one of Ottilie von Steyber's (1804–1870) ''Mädchenbildungsinstitut'' (Girls Educational Institutes). One of her students was Clara Zetkin.<ref name="Dhm"/> In 1864 she started a friendship with Louise Otto-Peters.<ref name="Dhm"/>
In 1866, she joined with Louise Otto-Peters in founding the Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein (ADF) (General Union of German Women) in Leipzig to work for better women's access to higher education and the professions as well as better protective legislation for working women. Schmidt and Otto-Peters served jointly as president and edited the house organ, ''Neue Bahnen'' ("New Paths").
In 1869, she founded the association of German teachers and educators and in 1890, together with Helene Lange, she founded the "''Allgemeinen Deutschen Lehrerinnen-Vereins''" (ADLV) (General German Teachers Association).<ref name="Leipz">{{cite web |url=http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~agintern/uni600/ug187.htm|title=Auguste Schmidt|access-date=2008-01-15|publisher=University of Leipzig|language=de}}</ref>
In 1894, she became the first president of the ''Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine'' (BDF), (League of German Women's Associations), which brought together thirty-four women's civil rights movement groups under a controlling body. This expanded to 65 in the first year.<ref name="SJF">{{cite book |last1=Sklar |first1=Kathryn Kish |last2=Schüler |first2=Anja |last3=Strasser |first3=Susan |title=Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany: A Dialogue in Documents, 1885-1933 |date=1998 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=0801484693 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4FUxisSKqRUC&q=Allgemeiner+deutscher+HausFrauenverein&pg=PA335 |access-date=28 July 2018}}</ref>
She published two novels in 1868, ''Tausendschön'' (''Daisies'') and ''Veilchen (Violets)'', a short story, ''Aus schwerer Zeit'' (''From Hard Times''), came out in 1895.
She retired in 1900 and died in Leipzig on 10 June 1902.
In 2003, a 14m long plaque was attached to the house in which she lived between 1863 and 1864 at Lortzingstraße 5, Leipzig, to commemorate her life.<ref name="Leipz"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Auguste}} Category:1833 births Category:1902 deaths Category:Writers from the Kingdom of Prussia Category:Heads of schools in Germany Category:German feminists Category:Writers from Wrocław Category:German trade unionists